flax-golden tales: a bluer blue blue sky

bluer blue blue skya bluer blue blue sky

I steal the color from the sky sometimes.

Sorry.

Though technically it’s not the sky’s own color anyway, it’s a reflection of the ocean. Also technically it is borrowing and not stealing because I always give it back.

I keep it in a specially made glass ball that I hang from a tree in my backyard for safekeeping until I decide to give it back. The glass is clear when it’s empty but when the sky is inside it turns blue blue and gets slightly heavier.

I should probably feel bad about it but I don’t.

I think people appreciate the blue blue sky more when they don’t see it all the time.

They miss it on the empty color sky days and the missing makes the returning happier.

And it makes the blue blue look even bluer.

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

ponies! gala! i <3 kentucky.

I am attempting to not do many events this year because I have a book to write, but when I was asked to go to Lexington, Kentucky because they had chosen The Night Circus as their One Book, One Bluegrass community read the invitation said something about a “gala” and who am I to resist a gala?

First, though, there was proper library talking and book signing in Frankfurt on Friday night and then on Saturday during the day there was pony racing! (I admit, beyond the word gala the whole “ponies” and also “bourbon” thing made the entire weekend appealing, and it more than lived up to my expectations.)

ponies

Kentucky is just gorgeous, with stretches of green field and blue sky and wooden fences stretching as far as the eye can see. And I had never seen proper in-person pony racing before. I am really, really bad at guessing which pony is going to win. I didn’t loose that much money, though.

And then on Saturday night there was the gala. I’m not sure it can be properly explained, but it was amazing.

barn

 

My original event info that said “gala in tents & barn.” Now, I’m from New England. When I hear “barn” I picture something boxy and red or possibly white.

Barns in Kentucky do not look like that. Barns in Kentucky have chandeliers.

enter

I’m not sure I can even explain it properly. It was big and buoyant and there was so much to look at, from performers and musicians to countless guests in amazing costumes. (I had considered that I might be overdressed when I was packing my corset, I really had nothing to worry about.) There was an aerialist and a marching band and the whip guy! And cocktails in commemorative glasses and food and a silent auction of of beautiful art and jewelry and things and really the only minor negative is that it was chilly, which I realize upon re-reading the prologue of the book was probably my fault. Sorry.

And seriously, the most beautiful barn. It looked like a cake! All round layers and twinkly lights. I am told there were over a thousand people there, yet it always felt busy and bustling and not crowded, and everyone appeared to be having a fantastic time.

I’m already not entirely sure it actually happened, or if I dreamed it, but there appear to be a great deal of photos. (There are a few more over on my tumblr.) Even the next day when I spoke at the beautiful Lexington Library it seemed far away in a dreamlike haze. And now I’m home in NYC. No circus, no ponies. At least I have bourbon.

I am eternally grateful to everyone who spent so much time and effort in planning and coordinating a truly astounding feat, and to the performers and vendors and all the deliciously lovely people who attended. I was honored to have been there.

For future circus events, the bar has been set. It’s been set really, really high.

flax-golden tales: possibly imaginary (but still perilous) sea journey

possibly imaginary sea journeypossibly imaginary (but still perilous) sea journey

We found a round old-fashioned map on a ball so we decided to take a sea journey because most of the map ball is oceans.

Parts of it are worn off and it has lot of lines and dots and numbers, with distances in “nautical miles” which we decide are what kilometers turn into when you are in a boat.

We toss our guide ball in the air so it can have a better view of where we’re going but it always says things are in the same place when it comes back down, it is very sure of itself.

We hit rough seas and almost lose our guide which would have been tragic but tragedy was averted because we held onto it tightly enough. We make a life vest for it out of a scarf and some string and we make it wear the vest and tie it down whenever the boat starts to sway too much.

There are sharks but they don’t bother us because we are polite and also because they just had their lunch which we suspect was fish but they don’t say, they only smile.

We travel along the blue dotted line from Yokohama to Honolulu because we like the sounds of the names but we get bored halfway there and drift in lazy circles instead.

We wonder if we are allowed to visit New Ireland before we visit Old Ireland, which we cannot find on the ball and assume it must be on one of the worn-off spots but we don’t know which one and we think guessing might prove dangerous.

A mermaid gives us a little flag with a clock on it when we pass the International Date Line and we let it flutter in the wind as we sail into the future or possibly the past.

(We are not quite certain which side is which.)

 

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

upcoming kentucky extravaganza

Tomorrow I am heading to Kentucky for a number of events as part of One Book, One Bluegrass. They chose The Night Circus for their 2013 community read.

I am keeping events to an absolute minimum this year because of that book I need to be writing, but this proposal sounded too fun to decline. There’s a gala! How could I refuse a gala?

So, my schedule is as follows:

Friday April 19th at 6:30pm – reading/babbling/signing/etc at the Paul Sawyier Public Library 319 Wapping Street, Frankfort, KY.

Saturday April 20th 7pm-11pm – The Night Circus Gala at The Red Mile-Round Barn 1200 Red Mile Rd, Lexington, KY. There will be magicians and dancers and fire and a whip guy and tarot readers and costume contests and all sorts of circusy wonderments. (And bourbon, I was told there would be bourbon.) Also I will be signing books and possibly wearing a corset.

Sunday April 21st 2pm – reading/babbling/signing/etc at the Lexington Public Library 140 East Main Street, Lexington, KY.

It should be great fun and these will be the last proper events I do for quite awhile, so I will try to babble as much as possible before I come home to NYC to shut up and write another book.

boston

Last year I took this photo:

marathon flags

Marathon Monday is one of my favorite days. I love watching people do extraordinary things.

I’d spent that morning last year watching the marathon coverage on tv and then wandered out into the unseasonably hot afternoon to watch runners cross the finish line and take pictures.

Yesterday when pictures of the explosions started showing up on Twitter everything looked surreally familiar.

I spent much of yesterday afternoon worried, particularly about my parents because my sister and I couldn’t get in touch with them. They were in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel across the street, and they’re both fine.

I don’t have words, not good proper ones to express the heavy-heart feeling. It’s strange for me to be in New York right now when I’ve spent most of my life in or near Boston. It’ll always be my city, wherever I end up in the world.

Yesterday I watched people do extraordinary things. They were more extraordinary than I had anticipated. The thing I will never forget about watching that footage on my computer was seeing how many people ran forward to help.

I love you, Boston. Stay strong. Stay extraordinary.