I just found out via Boing Boing that the city of Boston has shut down it's 78 year old print shop in a cost cutting effort and is now auctioning off its equipment in 200 lots.  The auction is being held on Feb 24 at 11AM estern and will be simultaneously conducted in the factory at 174 North St. as well as digitally.

There is all sorts of great old printing gear so I suggest any pamphleteers, zinesters, and print shops take a gander at the wares on offer.  In the Boston Globe they described an old-fashioned platen press with a hand lever and foot pedal and a Linotype machines that stand 6 1/2 feet tall as two of the pieces.

[Now Reading: Old Mans War by John Scalzi]

Review: The Shadow of the Bear: A fairy tale retold

 Doman, Regina.  (2008) The Shadow of the Bear: a fairy tale retold.  Front Royal, VA: Chesterton Press. ISBN #978-0-981-93180-7.  Author recommended age 14+. Litland.com recommends age 14+.  See author website for parent guide to aid you in deciding acceptability for younger readers.  http://www.fairytalenovels.com/docs/Picky%20Parent’s%20guide%20to%20Shadow.pdf

 Our thoughts:

 Modeled after the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale Snow White and Red Rose, this isn’t your Disney princess spoof. Anyone familiar with the real fairy tales of old know they spin morals and virtues contrasted with evil throughout the tapestry of the story. Doman’s book includes the best of this feature without some of the hideous and difficult storyline that traditional fairy tales are known for. 

It is a tale of two sisters named…you’ve got it, Blanche and Rose! The teenagers live with their widowed mother in New York City. Not a simple whodunit at all, the reader is led with suspense through the dark streets, halls and buildings; parties and conversations with the popular kids you know are setting them up for a fall; envy, jealousy, almost-despair, uncertainty. Fear. The description and self-dialogue realistically portray true inner emotions of the two sisters as they face ridicule, bathroom bullying, and school authorities. School-age readers can relate entirely; adult readers are glad to not be in high school anymore.

 Far from the typical one-dimensional view of teen angst given to us in entertainment today, this story is enriched by the affinities and intelligence of its characters. In addition to an occasional Chesterton or Tennyson quote, the description wrapped around their interactions is culturally-rich; thought-provoking wisdom is their normal discourse. Rose’s emotional melt-down in the park, playing her violin in the rushing wind with an impending storm at bay is dramatically told. We can feel her lift “her bow from the strings in the silence of the rushing winds…” after playing that “distant, bold note flying high as a bird to the clouds”.

 Not all is as it appears.

 Good and evil subtly mirror one another throughout the tale. It can be a rough exterior compared to a gentle personality. The rumored drug dealer’s virtuous behaviour compared to the popular, good looking guy using and manipulating all around him. Self-discipline and self-denial vs. hedonism and selfishness. White martyrs and red martyr vs. evildoers.

 A 200-page book should be a quick read. I usually slide right through one. Some books, however, just have more to say. And this book is one of those. Without a word wasted, Doman has given sufficiently rich detail in both the physical and emotional settings that we can feel we are there. We see in our mind solitary Rose playing an ominous tune on her violin in the middle of the park with the same fervor as the wind. From the beginning, the girls imagine that the human exterior merely covers up for a magical interior, and we are then swept through a fast-paced story full of emotion and suspense. Litland.com highly recommends this story for teens and adults. While its content is “clean”, parents should decide if a story line with drug dealers, beer parties, and murder are acceptable for their younger gifted reader. Grade for these schoolgirls? A++!

 (Follow the movie at http://theshadowofthebear.blogspot.com/ ! )

We still have all our Christmas decorations up; as it's another tradition I hold fast to. My youngest son's birthday is in January and we customarily keep the decorations up until after his birthday. It's so hard to put everything away and go back to being what feels like bare though it's far from it. That and the fact that due to the "project" I can't get to my Christmas boxes yet. Yippee, I can put it off until next weekend!

I came into writing imagining I'd be churning five thousand word essays all the time. But honestly, writing is getting shorter and shorter every day.

Now, with the advent of Twitter--the mini-blog site where people keep track of the minute details of their lives--writers have to learn how to tell a story in a couple sentences--flash journalism, if you will.

Over at Smith Magazine, Larry Smith mused about a suicide letter posted on Twitter--helping me think about "microjournalism" and the art of short short writing. Today I found this essay by new media reporter Steven Clemons and this New York Times article think about the ways you can write shorter and better.

Check it out and write something short:

"Microjournalism is the latest step in the evolution of John Dickerson, who worked for years at Time magazine, and has moved from print to online articles to blog entries to text messages no longer than 140 characters, or about two sentences. 'One of the things we are supposed to do as journalists is take people where they can't go," he said in an interview. "It is much more authentic, because it really is from inside the room.'"

Two exciting, new exhibits for children's book lovers who happen to find themselves in the Chicago area in the next few months:

1. Artifacts of Childhood: 700 Years of Children's Books
   Newberry Library, September 28, 2008—January 17, 2009
   Co-curated by Jenny of Jenny's Wonderland of Books, this collection of 65 works created for and by children promises to be fascinating. After the horn book bit on Collecting Children's Books, I'm eager to see the abecedaria dating from 1544.
2. The Bill Peet Storybook Menagerie
   The Art Institute of Chicago, August 23, 2008—May 24, 2009
   Bill Peet was one of my favorite author/illustrators when I was in elementary school. I repeatedly checked out The Whingdingdilly and was also fond of Fly, Homer, Fly!, The Wump World, and Chester the Worldly Pig. I wanted to write and draw like him. I could give you proof of this from my elementary school notebooks.

I somehow missed until Fuse #8's post last week Peet's career as a "storyman" for Disney. Not that it was all giggles; there's a fascinating—and scathing—interview at Hogan's Alley about his time as a continually unrecognized creative mastermind. The exhibit promises examples of Peet's Disney art as well as original art from many of his picture books.

I should be writing. I know that. But this is something I've been meaning to look into for, well, probably the past four or five summers. So, gosh darn it, I took the time today. I have three items that are antiques. Well, I have other pieces of furniture, etc., but these three are special. You know how you wonder if it would be worth it to stand in line at an antique road show? Well, for these three items, probably not. Either that, or I'm terrible at research.

The first? A Singer toy sewing machine, model 20. It really works!

 

You probably can't read the book, but the directions are dated 1925, although they made these models through 1975 or so. Worth? Less than $100.

Second? A Wheeler & Wilson treadle sewing machine.

I learned to sew on this machine. My parents found it tucked away in the corner of an old antique/junk shop. How cool is that? And mine has stacked drawers, unlike the one pictured in the link. My sister -in-law took a picture of a sewing machine like this in the Ford Museum in Ohio. It didn't have the top. They call it a coffin style cover.  I also have the machine handbook, but it's in bad condition. Worth? Again, the only price I've found is less than $100.

Then there's this flute. This has been much more difficult to track down. My flute has no identifying markings whatsoever. the closest I can find is the Euler, played in Frankfurt, Germany, circa 1880. (In the link, scroll down to the picture with three flutes.)

 

I've always figured that flute would be worth a ton! It badly needs reconditioning, and, as you can see, the ivory is cracked, which is not uncommon. I think. Do you know how hard it is to find flutes with ivory heads? Worth? Somewhere between $400 and $600. Sounds like a lot. But when you figure you can spend that much and more on a new flute, not so much. I really thought antiques were worth more. I suppose they must have a story to go with them.

If only they could speak. One day, when I've published a gazillion books and can get away with it, I'm going to write a book from the POV of an antique inanimate object.

 

April 9th will soon be upon us. And you know what that will mean...only 6 days left to pony up your taxes. April 9th also happens to be National Cherish an Antique Day. Which begs the question:

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By: Liz Goulet Dubois, on 9/12/2010
Blog: ChatRabbit (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Awesome Stuff, Inspiring Stuff, Random Fun, Vintage Stuff, antiques, Brimfield, collectibles, Add a tag

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By: Jason Boog, on 5/3/2007
Blog: ThePublishingSpot (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Book Reviews, Debra Hamel, twitter, twitterlit, Add a tag

Reading books can be a meditative experience, but some people avoid reading books if they don't have a spare three hours every night. Reading in short bursts can be a valuable skill for any fledgling writer.

Work has been busy lately, but I'm devouring Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch in short, intense bursts every spare moment I can find. Today I discovered a Twitter (the addictive social networking site where thousands of people post short answers to the question "What are you doing right now") site dedicated to readers on the run.

At TwitterLit where you can read the gripping first lines from books and discover the secret author behind them. My favorite so far is "I am in a medical laboratory at the Central Intelligence Agency, waiting to pee in a cup (secret author here)." Thanks to Debra Hamel for founding this wonderful site.

Check it out:

"What is TwitterLit? Twice a day, at about 12:00 AM and 12:00PM GMT, I post the first line of a book, without the author's name or book title, but with a link (to Amazon.com) so you can see what book the line is from. Why? Because it's fun! A quick literary teaser for you twice daily."

 

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By: Amy C. Moreno, on 6/21/2007
Blog: Cachibachis (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  TwitterLit, Add a tag

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By: Jason Boog, on 7/20/2007
Blog: ThePublishingSpot (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Flash Fiction, Jenny Holzer, twitter, twitterlit, Add a tag

Think you write a punchy sentence? Imagine your next sentence projected in gigantic letters on the side of the New York Public Library.

That's the kind of writing that artist Jenny Holzer does, stark, gigantic, but brief manifestos that she projects on buildings and walls. Now, Jenny Holzer allegedly has a page on the brief blog website, Twitter. It's crazy to think about this BIG LETTER artist working on the smallest screen.

But we can learn from her example (or alleged example, in this case), learning how to polish our even our shortest posts into glittering, deadly sentences. In a world crowded with short blog posts and the blink-of-an-eye news headlines, more writers are cutting their teeth on the fine art of Flash fiction--short short stories that hardly break a thousand words apiece.

Go check out these flash fiction repositories if you want some more quick reading: Smith Magazine's six word memoirs, quick science fiction in 365 Tomorrows, and short literary pieces at 400 Words. And don't forget the good folks at TwitterLit, bringing books to Twitter.

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