Back to Froggie, Blodge and Geoggers

Easter Blooms from Mum. Also, by accident, Biore Pore Strip ad. Does Biore have an accent? 

The Marble Faun is moving in.

Half-Way Between Winter and Summer

"But you see in dealing with me, the relatives didn't know that they were dealing with a staunch character and I tell you if there's anything worse than dealing with a staunch woman... S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There's nothing worse, I'm telling you. They don't weaken, no matter what."

Good Friday. Better Saturday. Best Sunday.

Baby J could have looked like this. If he had been made in photoshop and worn bow ties. 

"But don't you treat it like a toy..."

Collecting vintage popular science articles and 60's songs about beaches and heartbreak. This (pictured above) kills two baby birds with one stone, but they will go to heaven. Both scientists and Beach Boys are awfully earnest about awfully preposterous things. For example, in the 1963 masterwork "Catch a Wave," Mike Love (Mike Love with a cold!) informs his fans/pupils that surfing, established in the first verse as the "greatest sport around," is "not a fad cause its been going on so long. / All the surfers going strong. / They said it wouldn't last to long. / They'll eat their words with a fork and spoon. / And watch em, they'll hit the road and all be surfin' soon. / And when they catch a wave they'll be sittin' on top of the world." Apparently there is a preponderance of evidence--the popularity of surfing is no anomaly. In any case, Peter Weiss' article is about scientists who dream of riding gravitational waves. Top-notch Cosmonauts in shag haircuts and labcoats.

And for my Valentines...

"You should be dressed up, going out with boys, going to school, you know, that kind of stuff."

Thoughts of Iris as we move toward spring.

  

Mystery Fruit

Here are two things you should know about Mystery Fruit.

The first one is this. "It's a tiny berry. But it works miracles when you eat it before sour foods. Lemons instantly turn from sour to sweet. Even a bologna sandwich turns to cake." And you can hear about it here.

The second one is this game, goofy as heck, for learning how to feed strange foods to animals that don't really eat those foods in real life.

"From space the lambent windows of girls look like stars or bullseyes."

Two pictures by Tim Walker helped me to think of a story I wrote today beginning at 6 in the morning. A poem by my mum when she was small helped me as well. The poem goes somewhat like this:

I had a nickle once.

I sold it for a penny.

Then off to buy some bubble gum.

I hadn't tasted any.

The bubblegum was good, I guess.

About as good as any.

But I wish I had my nickle back.

I'd buy another penny. 

Here is a piece of the story: 

"Retreating from the pantry, Marigold Elkan confirms green plastic army men in teacups and ready-made hovels all over her bedroom. She keeps them around, these green plastic talismans, to discourage inauspicious objects from doing her harm. Encounters with omens are inescapable—today’s omens included, but were not limited to, the uprooted perennials on her route home from school, a pair of tennis shoes tossed over a telephone wire, a dripping spigot, a Gypsy Moth in death throes and monkey wrench left lying about. 

So she leaves one man serenading the twirling ballerina in her jewelry box, on bended knee with a missile launcher where a ruby rhinestone brooch should be. One man winding up, grenade in hand, and walking the frame of her mirror like a tightrope. Three in a tiny china trench beneath her bed. She’s named the men for boys at school, who she knows would be purple-heart heroes, if only they gave her a chance.

Her room is as blue as Allegra’s is rose, one wall gently cracked and powdery from the seeping in of a wet summer when she was small. Against it, a paper lamp throws fat shadows of bedknobs."

The crackly blue walls come from another photograph by the same fellow. 

Separated at Birf

Katharine Hepburn & David Bowie

According to Amy, who is always terribly sensible and knows a lot about kidnapping and related practices because she read The Face on the Milk Carton, "every day twelve newborns are given to the wrong family."

A Provisional Wishlist

This is what I mostly want in the world. Fisher Price play cupcakes. One is chocolate, one is cherry one is vanilla-vanilla and one is vanilla-mint. It is peculiar, a very many people have got used play food on their wishlists too, or at least on their eBay watchlists. Plastic cupcakes may be the safest place to invest during these times of troubled money waters. 

Girls and Boys to Look Like in Winter

Furry Hats, Snowy Expanses

Capes, Being a Long-Lost Princess

Purposeful Scarves, Sticks, Looks and Purpose

Faith and Plaids and Hat-Bobbles

Collars and Wintry Demeanors 

Wednesday says, "There are several things I think are very important. Hats are civilized and ought to be worn. But I do not like knitted newsboy hats even on newsboys, so please do not wear them or I might chop you in my guillotine. Ok? Also, primary red is not a jewel tone. Primary colors are stupid. I'm hungry. If I didn't button up quite so far my favorite thing would be a choker made out of jewels. I am very particular about throwing a pinch of salt over my shoulder. Please use your indoor voice." 

If you like the sound of refugeese...

Three Discoveries: 

Bubble Tea is too much like Gelatinous Algae. 

Tyra Banks is a mythical creature. She is very tall. About nine feet, and about 4 feet across. Her head is very large. Her hair is also large, and like a mane. Her eyes are electric green, like limeade. I might be imagining that . She was delusional. She tells disappointing stories. Non-Confessions. Pseudo-Confessions. She always commiserates, but falsely. Tyra Banks is a false comiserator. 

“Went up in smoke,” sounds pleasant, as if all the family Polaroids, paint chips and defunct dollhouses didn’t burn to the ground, but crumbled into particles and clung to the rising smoke—became a heaven-bound sooty dollhouse colloid. The firemen came too late—the house floated up into the sky. 

A Specimen

Just a Little specimen I spotted on my nature walk from The Breakfast House. She must have detected the orange juice I was carrying home and come out to investigate! 

"On a beauty budget?"

Click Adelaide to enlarge. 

Instructions for Collecting, Rearing, and Preserving British and Foreign Insects

Pictured above: Wet hair & the national dress of THE SOOTY PLUM. 

Update: Apparently Ralph Lauren knows how to say America in stitches. That is, he designed the Olympic Opening Ceremony uniforms, which, according to some kind of consensus, are an embarrassment, and were "sent to chinese "tailors" at the last minute." Icko. Also, recently read of the Coach sponsored Hunter College class, which is both an atrocity and also, a big joke. Would the fake blog of a fake insufferable nitwit that chronicles her knockoff handbag woes really turn $10,000 dollars worth of potential customers against counterfeits. (I suppose, since Coach bags cost $400, they would only have to convince 25 people to break even.) This blog, in explanation, is what the "students" were asked to create. Most things are starting to feel like short stories set in a parallel 1992. Perhaps they felt the same in the 1870's when "a butterfly net was...invented that, when folded, looked exactly like an umbrella, so that one could take in on a stroll without attracting undue attention. (As the British historian David Elliston Allen has pointed out, one did look rather a fool if it started to rain and one's umbrella remained obstinately furled." (Collecting Nature, Anne Fadiman) 

Other things that I feel belong in a short story about the future, the dangers of unbridled technological progress, alien wars, The Chairman of the World, styrofoam food etc. etc. (Vonnegut/Ender's Game/War Games moments, you know...): 

Music Police

Online Shopping 

Firearm Buybacks

Monicagate

Russian Invasion

Google Maps

Blood Banks

The Automat in St. Mark's

Please contribute to my list. But they can't be CRAZY like Claytronics, they just have to have snuck in. 

In the middle of a shave I call your name...

Cheers to last night's Opening Ceremony, my favorite bit of which is the parade. Julia and I, sitting in a French bistro playing John Lennon and Smashing Pumpkins, applauded each of the countries we had any remote link to, and those we had never heard of for being so small. Of note, each country gets to wear either their ethnic garb (national dress?) OR a jaunty little suit. I wonder what the national dress of the United States is? Harper's Bazaar seems to have some idea, although I think Lucy looks a bit mad in these fotos. (Especially the Lacroix.)

Meanwhile, "attending the Olympic Games in Beijing, President Bush directly called on Russia on Saturday to stop bombing Georgian territory." Alexander Lomaya (an important Georgian) says, "Russia has clearly decided to redraw the boarders of the Eastern Europe map of the post-cold war situation...If the world is not able to stop Russia here, then Russian tanks and Russian paratroopers can appear in every European capital."  

But the show must go on. 

The Nighttime Sirens

The Nighttime Sirens,

a letterpress & linocut broadside

by

SOOTY PLUM PRESS

(before and after...rather, during and after)

Coming Soon: A Closeup (It has to dry for ages.)

It smelled like turpentine, it looked like India ink...

...I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink.

1. "When, on the train, I caught the girl drawing me from the feet up, I apprehended, for the first time, what I must look like from the outside. That is imprecise. I apprehended, or was happy to note, that people might see me. That I, or at very least, my shoes, are picturesque. I cannot say whether, finding my calves dull, she would have stopped at the ankles."

2. S took me to the potion shop. He says he wishes he hadn't told me beforehand. I buy: A red potion ("Against Envy," (baby cough syrup)), a bottle of coconut water, a green "lucky planets," potion for him because his eyes light up when I point it out, and because, in retrospect it is a strange perversion of "lucky stars." It seems to be Listerine and Sandalwood. I have bought these potions more for their labels than their powers. I bought another called "Peace and Justice." I bought them more for their labels, but I am superstitious, I did not buy the one with Venus, the woman and the word "Venus." I think of "Love Potion No. 9," more for its tune than its lyrics, which begin, "I took my troubles down to Madame Rue. You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth." I do not buy the potion that reads "Destroy Everything." The lady proprietor, S says, has a Wiseface. He thinks that's all she needs to make money, or that a Wiseface is a Goldmine. He says that he says that he doesn't believe in magic so that he can. A man on the train home, after I've left S, reads aloud from a nonfiction book about coconuts, chemical compounds. His girlfriend talks about Jerry Garcia.

3. Arthur thinks "unidentified man" must be John Doe, but he's wrong. An unidentified man is Mister X. They have the same number of letters. Arthur told me the story of an election eve crossword. The puzzle depended on its filler's answer to the clue "Our next president." Adjoining clues could be solved in 2 ways, depending. 2 men, aspiring to one identifier. Other men, not unlike these, relegated to 70 across: "Adlai's 1956 running mate," to which we all answer, grumbling in a rush for wrongness, "Stevenson?" 1 man poorly, one man un- , identified. Together (there are four of us) we learn the word anagrammatic. Jim Morrison, Mr. Mojo Risin'. 1 man twice identified. It is only Tuesday.

4. A man as I come out of the train on my home street asks, "How you doin' beautiful?" for example. I ignore him. I don't often. I imagine him asking me if I am upset with him. I am not, I am only trying to keep something in my head 'til I get through the door, something about clues. Then I see a woman in a red dress with eyelets (to a fleshy silk lining beneath), the kind that feign peep-showiness, inexplicably, because they are otherwise much like dirndls. Austo-Demure. And her boyfriend is holding her pointer finger like a toddler, but is much taller than she so he bends it upwards, force-pointing it at the sky and me, I'm losing whatever that clue mighta been.

Zweidzajcie Zoo

Matchbooks, old ones, and also the closest thing to a prayer I know: 

Prayers at the Plum House

For the pink plastic piggy, 

the toddling fist it fills to the brim.

Lord hear our prayer. 

For the mustangs I never knew existed.

For feral cats and the tiny things at home

in the matted fur of feral children.

For breadboxes and all things just the size of one. 

For troglodytes. 

Guide the empty promise, the faulty levels, banished clotted cream.

Blessed are three-footed tracks, askew Ascot bonnets. 

For pigeonholes where baby pigeons hatch.

For the heartbeat of the stethoscope strangler.

For our Bishop's, Rooks and moreover the three missing Pawns.

Lord here our prayer. 

For all the jilted umlauts, 

the endangered scharfes S. 

For those sound waves hurling cries of "Timber!"

As well the lazy ones napping like barnacles on the backs of sighs. 

For Ferragamo's thimble,

the tin behind the Ruby Slippers. 

For the Glockenspiel, 

which doesn't start with X.

Lord hear our prayer.

For the unlucky last of the baker's dozen,

For the hush of round pegs in round holes.

For embroidered merit-badge mountains. 

For puny merit.

Lord hear or prayer. 

Grant to the departed crosstown bus eternal rest.

Grant that rhinestone rubies, blue carnations and

all other missers of marks may truly and humbly serve you. 

Seeking a staff of Labcats.

New Labrys poster. I hope it will appeal to the new and v. DIY Smithies in the fall. It has its flaws, but it also has a cat so... And there is something to be said for the "spontaneous" look of impulse collages. 

She began collecting "his" pictures and saving up for visits.

New street treasures. Plasticpinks and Bluebottle Clubs blooming from the sidewalk. I walked all Saturday to nowhere. I discovered many things and saw many people. 

On Wednesday I got stomped in the train station and my Chinese slippers were ripped asunder. Not from each other, one bit of one from its other bit. In any case, pictured above are their successors. They are named Posey and Oatway. There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, but really most people live in their shoes and also, there was an old woman who was married to the Berlin Wall. (Thanks to Claire.) "What they did was awful, they mutilated my husband," she said of Ron's order to "Tear down that wall!" "She is said to have shifted her affections to a nearby garden fence." I think that bit will be in my movie about Nancy Reagan too. The widow will come to confront Nancy in the rose garden, asking her how she would feel if "some big shot president tore down her husband." Nancy is appalled but smug--Reagan had already won his 2nd term in a landslide victory. 

Also on my to-do list: 

1. Discover a cryptid. 
   
2. Make a Chloe Sevigny collage. 
   
3. Establish a mean-dog wildlife refuge. 
   
4. See those Hello Kitty sculptures, wherever they are. 
   

And, like I say, of all the blasted things for Iowa (Iowa City!) to make headlines over, Nosebiting.

Grandpa Pera né Karadzic, Nancy Reagan née Robbins

Here is something I am quite curious about. Pictured (NYTimes) above are Serbian nationalists (ultra-nationalists) demonstrating in opposition to the arrest of the man on the silkscreened indie band merch.-lookin' picket sign, Radovan Karadzic, who "engineered" (you can't say masterminded) the Srebenica Massacre, in which 8000 Muslim males were murdered. Among other things. Karadzic has been in hiding for ten years, disguised as a bushy-bearded new age guru in Vienna. (Always Vienna and its theatre.) The massacre itself occurred thirteen years ago. The thing is, how old was that kid in front when it went down anyway?  Like three and a half? I have not cared about anything since I was three and a half, except maybe string cheese. How did he get there? In his mum's van? Will he hang that poster on the back of his bedroom door? Does he listen to David Bowie? Does he like string cheese? 

Back at the ranch, I'm thinking of writing a screenplay about Nancy Reagan, a "vintage" Joan Didion article on whom was the best thing I read all week. You really can't scrimp on this one and I encourage reading the whole lot of it ("In the Realm of the Fisher King") but.... Nancy appears to have thought the Oval Office functioned like a Hollywood studio. Didion writes, "She seems not to have had much sense about who goes with who. At a state dinner for Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador, she seated herself between President Duarte and Ralph Lauren." The bit I like best, and the bit with the most cinematic potential is the "I Love Lucy" esque episode in which the Reagans are expected, for show, to attend a serious (real wine) church service. Nancy freaks out because everybody is "drinking out of the same cup," and is advised to simply dip her "body of christ," into the wine instead. Frazzled, she drops it into the chalice, and Ron, who has been advised to "do exactly as Nancy does," lets his plop in turn. Nancy leaves the service distraught. Ron was "chipper," and "satisfied that the service had gone quite well." In any case, the film would have a Nick-at-Nite aesthetic and rely on farcical British humor. As yet untitled. 

“This was part of her belt,” said the police lieutenant, nudging a bent nail with the toe of his shoe.

Marilyn wore Chanel No.5 to bed, I wore Rosewater and whatever slip of a thing is pictured above to do leftover crossword puzzles all evening. As for what female suicide bombers are wearing to work this season...

"We can't search women. They are wearing abayas, and God knows what they can hide under them," said Atheer Allawi, a police officer, of the three female bombers who killed 61 people and wounded 238 in Baghdad and Kirkuk this morning. 

The article goes on to say that "the violence did not deter the marchers, who continued down one of Baghdad's main thoroughfares, waving green flags, and with Shiite religious songs blaring from loudspeakers." How does a a country become a country in which a massacre does not rain on the parade? 

Sunday Afternoon in America

For some of us, Sunday Afternoons in America are about iced watermelon and errrr....Canadian Vine Tomatoes (We are now outsourcing hardy homegrown vegetable manufacturing?) Mine was. I went on a bit of a produce spree...mushrooms, peppers, baby carrots, blueberries, peaches AND nectarines, tomatoes, a bouquet of basil and hummus, if hummus counts as produce. My Sunday Afternoon in America was also about baking aforementioned Pity Cupcakes. I decided on a Dark Knight/White Knight theme--fudge brownie cupcakes with vanilla frosting and lemon drops to represent the sweet and sour of the whole ordeal. Sweet=the fact that I got to watch Batman. Sour= I suppose, the fact that two less-fortunates didn't. 

For others, Sunday Afternoons in America are about Bob Novak and slavery: 

Says the 86 year old homeless victim of Bob Novak's hit-and-run, "I'm a pretty tough guy, you know. And when I saw I was being hit, I rolled with the punch. I used my training in judo to roll with the punch....I've known Bob Novak for a long time, and he's a very good reporter. But as a driver he wasn't paying attention." 

In another American town, in another American state (Postville, Iowa. Oh the things we make national news headlines for...), the labor practices at the raided meatpacking plant are finally being investigated. Says the NYTimes article on the matter, "The immigrant saw 'a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.'" And also, "'The floor supervisor then took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatamalan with it,' the informant said, adding that the blow did not cause "serious injuries."' Since when do meathooks, brandished as weapons, cause anything less than serious injury? And also, is a slab of meat that has been used to smack someone across the face still kosher? 

And last but not least, or maybe least, a new American pastime. The salute, the firm handshake, the beauty queen wave... the fist bump (a gesture among gestures). 

"If there's something dangerous, sauces are dangerous to the body."

Are Paris Vogue, Carine Roitfeld and Mario Testino just plain rude? I mean, you can't give purchasing information AND be satirical at the same time, right?  What I want to know is, do they carry that faceless PETA guy's flak jacket at Saks? 

In other fashion news Marc Jacobs has a new (ahem) aesthetic, or at least his website does. Quite hypnotic. 

Bonus: Vintage Karl Lagerfeld on Princess Di...

"She was pretty and she was sweet, but she was stupid." 

P.S. Post title also courtesy of Karl. 

Despite seven months of private Italian lessons, Adelaide still confuses air kisses and the sign of the cross.

Air Kiss Tutorial

Sign of the Cross Tutorial

Nokomis Baskerville and How FauxFrais Almost Took Over the World

Pictured above is my new old California Job Case. Since I do not yet own any type, it will hold other tiny things, of which I own many. My first type purchase may be Centaur, or Baskerville. I was about to write about how I mistakenly associate the Baskerville of font fame and the Baskerville of Hound of the Baskervilles, but I've just discovered it's no mistake! Baskerville is Baskerville is Baskerville. After I get my own type I may have to have a child and name her Nokomis Baskerville. 

In the past few days the following things have been pleasant: thinking about baby carrots, NYTimes Science Section, soy milk, toiletries in glass bottles, being on the roof, crossword puzzles, a clean room, trivia questions (especially concerning animals and geography), farewell present notions, chinese slippers, Laughing Cow cheese, laughing, basil (as usual), my jar, lace panties, diners and diner code, undemanding newspapers, colors, stranger's compliments, baby wipes, Brucci nail polishes which are called the best things, even if sometimes the best colors don't go with the best names (Cotton Candy, Black & Blue and Redwood=Dull, Oktoberfest, Christopher Street and Shari's Spessarite=Perfect) and cost like 42 cents. There was also one called Brown Bag It. The other thing that is pleasant is eating out of a saucepan. 

In the past few days the following things have been unpleasant: t-length sleeves, pants, too many french fries served on a separate plate from the sandwich, styrofoam boards, drain hair. 

Surely there were others, but those were the ones I noted. 

Wallace & Gromit is playing in the park. Can I go to that alone? 

"Good grammar is essential, Robin."

THE DARK KNIGHT

THIS GIRL IS THE HERO I DESERVE

I once knew a boy. On one of the last sunny days we spent together (that boy and I) we found these beautiful Batman masks for just pennies at Walmart, black and plain and plastic, and we passed them by. I always wonder, if I'd insisted on them, a pair of them, would things have turned out differently? Probably not. I suppose when one is the sort of girl who calls The Joker dreamy, no number of dime-novel caliber toy trinkets can help. Somehow during the course of the evening (this evening and not that sunny day) I got suckered into a Sunday afternoon (a Sunday in the future and not that sunny day) toiling over either pity pastries or guilt cupcakes, for having improperly organized the screening. That is to say, I felt badly for those without tickets (I was a ticket-holder myself) and offered to bake them treats. What flavor of frosting accompanies pity gracefully? Cherry? Cherry with non pareilles. Cherries have pits, and no two pities are the same?

All those flowers. All that dust.

Georgette Heyer once wrote, "Of course there are more important things than clothes. But not when one is getting dressed." She was right, but today I didn't get dressed and instead thought about the following things...

Wild Horses, and the scrooginess of calling them "feral equids." It is worse than refusing to "clap your hands if you believe in fairies," and letting Tinkerbell die. Worse because its real...I mean...."I do believe in fairies!" 

Coming of Age Novels, yesterday having either read or re-read Stephen Chbosky's  The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which, moreover, is an epistolary novel AND today having begun Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides, wherein the Lisbon girls seem to have been born "of age," and to die before anything really changes. Peter Sissen (some boy) does return to his pack (of some other boys), after visiting the house of the Lisbon girls with "stories of bedrooms filled with crumpled panties, of stuffed animals hugged to death by the passion of girls, of a crucifix draped with a  brassiere, of gauzy chambers of canopied beds, and of the effluvia of so many young girls becoming women together in the same cramped space." Here "becoming women," sounds more like the interminable brewing of some kind of potion then a real process with a fixed beginning and end, the end being womanhood I suppose. I recognize this "effluvia," this either noxious gas or impalpable aura, from the washrooms at summer camps, from the hallways in Smith College dorms.  All the clutter in this book is so familiar. I wonder if boys recognize themselves in Perks? In any case, the two (The Perks of Being a Wallflower & The Virgin Suicides) make a lovely double-feature, even if they do nothing to make bearable this atrocious heat!

Solar Power, and Tom Friedman comparing oil-dependency to crack addiction: "When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up. His problem is what that crack addiction is doing to his whole body. The cure is not cheaper crack, which would only perpetuate the addiction and all the problems it is creating. The cure is to break the addiction." I actually recently received some insider info on Tom Friedman, but it isn't that he is on crack. It is more along the lines of him being picky about condiments. Smart guy, all horseradish is suspect. 

Smaller than a poppy seed.

Brits have better news than we do, but Erin Michelle sent me a postcard, a divinely American postcard from the desert, which makes me love my country. I guess those Brits have some sad news too.

Winecat.

NOUVELLE HOUSE

Closet vs. Couture #2

Jean Paul Gaultier, Resort 2009 vs. Closet

This sandbox at the end of the earth.

BIG HAMMER. LITTLE HAMMER.

The light in my home.

I can tap across the Tappan Zee!

So many Street Treasures! Today I found Really Rosie, the Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen) & Carole King collaboration, on the curb. But only Cassette No. 4. Oh dear! Rosie lives in Brooklyn just like me and...

 ROSIE SINGS

In this fabulous movie you're all gonna see,

an entirely different Avenue P. 

Imagine me in a jungle gown, 

and Avenue P a jungle town! 

Salami and Strawberries (before & after)

"One strawberry milk please," said Plum.

Letterpress and Chocolates

Printing Par Amour at Intima Press today on a goliath Uni3. I suppose I'll always love the Uni1, with its darling little crank, but this one's got loads of buttons and a counter! As we printed the bridge, we discovered the words "Me & You" were missing! Then the day was saved, but not by me. I must admit, I haven't quite grokked what the two (the bridge and the words) have to do with eachother.  My homework is to name my own "press." Sooty Plum Press is rather winsome, non? The suggestion box is open... Remember, in the title of this post, when I said Letterpress and Chocolates? I lied. I haven't had any chocolates yet today. 

Closet vs. Couture #1

Closet vs. Marc Jacobs Spring 2008

"I creep in to see what happened the night before."

Went to the Morgan and cried a bit over the Gutenbergs. I just kept thinking, "I have Johannes to thank  for Alice's Adventures!" And also, for some reason, Catcher in the Rye. That one keeps sneaking into my thoughts lately. Maybe because I see so many over-adorned book covers that his insistently plain one sifts to the top, or the bottom, or whichever. In any case, I think I really cried over Lewis Carroll and J.D. Salinger while reading Ruth in Latin under glass this evening. While on the subject of glass, the Morgan has a Great Glass Elevator, which happens to be the title of the forgotten (as noted by Arthur) sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Also at the Morgan this evening, a documentary on Philip Guston, and its documentarian Michael Blackwood, who sat precisely in front of me in the theater in a smashing emperor looking jacket with loads of buttons. I blurted "Thank you!" and did a sort of impromptu curtsy as the curtain fell (credits rolled). It was apropos because I was wearing a somewhat tutu today.  Throughout the film, because of all the pink, I kept thinking of Pepto-Bismol and "He could have painted cherry blossoms!" I most admire his drawing of a breakfast sandwich, and the drawing pictured above, of weight. He said that he was interested in old fashioned things like that, and gravity. This drawing reminds me of a recurring dream I had when I was very small about a terribly heavy ball of clay hanging from the end of a strand of hair. 

Two pieces of news that ought to be clipped out and tucked into a flower press or dime novel, one sad, one happy: 

Boy Scouts

Mystery House

We are the Sherlock Holmes English speaking vernacular.

On the hunt for sensible shoes, I found two pairs of chinese slippers. On the hunt for love graffiti, I found this, which is either the Jewish Autonomous Oblast or the Inuvik Airport, or something more mysterious and arcane. On Monday, a lady took a picture of my lunch. A cupcake (vanilla with sprinkles)  in a bento box! She was looking for circles. She found one. 

Pleated turban headwrap with a polished metal rhinestone embellished shell brooch. One size.

Amy S. found this turban on sale the friendly neighborhood online retailer of perpetual youth, Forevahhh 21 dot com. If you like the Rhinestone Turban (pommeled down to $5.99), "you may also like," the Shannon Striped Thong, tortoiseshell Jackie O sunglasses, a daffodil jersey babydoll dress and of course, a safari jacket, 'cause ethnic accessories and knockoff African resort wear flock together. Oh F21, you know me so well. Pictured above, me out for an Egg Cream, sporting the entire getup! Four words. Add to your bag. 

La Chorale des Enfants de L'opera de Paris

From Top to Bottom, Left to Right on my new stoop sale freebox record: 

• Bluette Cassiopæ
  
• Bienamee Iolande
  
• Exilie Uguette
  
• Toussainte Rigoberte
  
• Ofelie Lalou
  
• Hannelore Genovefa
  
• Sabeline Pomme-Prisque
  

I named all of them! You can't see in the picture but Bluette is wearing the most pretty blue ribbed stockings and Bienamee sports stockings of a similar hue but waffled. Also of note, Bienamee's beret, Exilie's gold chain belt and headband, Toussainte's haircut, Ofelie's glasses of course, Hannelore's belt, peter-pan collar and hair blossom, as well her earrings, and last but not least Sabeline's lovely pose and secret. 

Yooooo make me feel so brand noooooooooooo!

My landlady. Sudsy and singing on a Saturday morning. My camera clicks earsplittingly so I had to enlist a henchmen with a shushily clicking camera to capture this moment. Her name is Joanna Eleanor, which is the best and could be a cabbage patch name. Here are some other CP names I have encountered: Cally Lettie, Tae Ema, Lizette Vanna. I would like to collect them someday, the names, not the dolls. 

Dear Abby, looking glamorous sitting behind a mahogany desk.

My grandmother went to college with Dear Abby and Ann Landers, I suppose they were sisters. Anastasia fears Dear Abby, because she has this awful problem with a crush/creep who carries a briefcase to school and thinks DA won't take her seriously. But Anastasia doesn't need DA, she can give lovely advice on her own, as evidenced by the her object of envy glasses and shabby chic wallpaper. So, as retribution, on behalf of AK, I have determined to hijack some of DA's advisees and offer up some lovely advice of my own. 

Dear Abby: Our parents make my sister and me go with them to visit our grandparents one Saturday a month. They live two hours away. We don't like having to waste our Saturday this way. My sister and I are 15 and 16, and we're old enough to stay home alone. When we are there, all we do is sit there bored while our parents and grandparents talk. Blah Blah Blah...Bored to Death in Wisconsin

Dear Bored: Dummy, you have to do it. Parents get to do everything they want, including smoking cigarettes in the bubble bath if they want to. But most parents don't smoke in the bubble bath because they know better and like to keep things organized. Bubbles in the bath, cigarettes someplace else. Although I like to think about how you can't get electrocuted by taking a cigarette in the bath whereas if you took something like a toaster oven in there something dreadful would happen. In any case, grandparents often have pleasant things like giant opals and arsenic in their houses, and stories about Czars. Also, will you ask your Grandma please if she ever slept over at Georgia O'Keefe's (who was also from Wisconsin but found a nice hobby to keep her from getting bored), or maybe ask your Grandpa if he ever took her out for an Egg Cream. Yumsie. And maybe Spencer Tracy took your Grandma out for an Egg Cream. Yumsie. So don't be so cantankerous. Someday you can smoke cigarettes in the bubble bath too, but not yet 'cause you're only 15 and 16. Yours Truly....The Sooty Plum

"Big deal," said Anastasia. "Did she have a tee shirt with her name on it?"

I suppose I compare all books to the following, none of which were written with anyone of legal voting/smoking age in mind...

• Harriet the Spy 
  
• Roxaboxen
  
• The Giver
  
• The Man in the Ceiling
  
• Matilda
  
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
  
• Ender's Game
  
• Anastasia Krupnik (a newcomer to the list)  
  
• Winnie the Pooh 
  
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 
  
• Sophie's World 
  
• Adrian Mole

The B. List includes...

• Life in the Fat Lane
  
• Georgia Nicolson  
  
• Gossip Girl (There is no shame here.)
  
• BSC
  
• The Boxcar Children
  

Note: Pictured above is Harriet and NOT Anastasia despite the accompanying title, although I'm quite sure the two would have been fast friends, maybe a little "There aint enough room in this town for the both of us," but friends nonetheless. 

Note: Man, all of these fake kids are probably better informed than my friends. Let them vote! Equal rights for characters! Also maybe Matilda would make a good Secretary of State, what with the hair ribbon and all. 

Today I have a new house. And an old drawing.

Adelaide, Eigth Grader

I made these (and more!) so people can learn German with robots! Sort of. With computers. You understand.

She got Greta Garbo standoff sighs.

Whoever made these is a hero. If only they were in my house!