miscellany

horoscope

Cancer Horoscope for week of July 4, 2013

Thomas Gray was a renowned 18th-century English poet best remembered for his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” It was a short poem — only 986 words, which is less than the length of this horoscope column. On the other hand, it took him seven years to write it, or an average of 12 words per month. I suspect that you are embarking on a labor of love that will evolve at a gradual pace, too, Cancerian. It might not occupy you for seven years, but it will probably take longer than you imagine. And yet, that’s exactly how long it should take. This is a character-building, life-defining project that can’t and shouldn’t be rushed.

Thank you, Rob Brezsny, for making me feel better about this not-yet-novel-shaped thing taking so long.

By erin, ago

twitter-sourced blog post the first

I wasn’t sure what to blog about today and for the sake of experimentation, I asked Twitter.

Twitter gave me lots of suggestions, so I am going to try to address as many of them as I can, likely over 3 or so posts. This is the first one. (I’ve broken out all the circus/new book stuff to talk about together.) I will get to the rest of them soon(ish).

So, here we go:

 

Pizza.

So this sad thing happened about three years ago or so. I read an article about gluten allergies and on a whim decided to avoid it for two weeks and in that two weeks I lost over five pounds and felt way better than usual so I decided maybe I should continue avoiding.

But of course that makes all the wonderful delicious gluten-filled foodstuffs difficult. Luckily gluten-free seems to be quite trendy at the moment but proper pizza is still difficult. There was a restaurant in Boston I used to get rather good gluten-free pizza from (Nebo, for the curious, the zucchini one is my favorite), haven’t found one in NYC yet. I did find good frozen gluten-free “pizza crusts”  that are questionable if you go classic red sauce on but really good if treated more like flatbread. I do pear/goat cheese/honey things or bbq chicken or fig and prosciutto.

My favorite regular pizza topping is pineapple, though.

 

Any tips for Camp NaNoWriMo?

I think my Camp NaNo tips are likely the same as my regular November NaNo tips except possibly with more iced beverages. Don’t re-read. If you want to delete something turn the font color to white instead and keep going. Always meet your daily wordcount minimum. Get a head start if you can. Remember you can go back and make things better afterwards. Surprise yourself.

My official NaNoWriMo pep talk is over here.

 

Won’t this be your first summer living in NYC? I’d like to hear what excites you most about it! (I’m moving here in July)

Hurrah, I hope your move goes smoothly! It is my first NYC summer, indeed. So far it seems more exciting than winter in NYC (which was about hibernating) and spring in NYC (which was rainy). I have already read in Central Park on a blanket in a shady spot on a hot day, which reminds me a bit of being at an oceanless green beach. I am also completely enamored of all the fantastic outdoor dining/drinking spots. Right now my two favorite rooftops are Gallow Green and the rooftop at pod39.

In general, the things that excite me most about NYC are food or drink related. Also parks.

 

I think the witch in Hansel&Gretel inherited her tasty house and only hates kids b/c they’re always destroying it. Thoughts?

I have always thought those kids were terribly rude for eating someone’s house without so much as asking first. Makes me wonder if they’d just knocked on the door and said “Hello, we are lost and scared and hungry” would they have been given a proper balanced meal and everything would have been happy ever after. This makes me want some sort of re-imagining where Hansel & Gretel are polite and the witch adopts them and they become little fledgling cannibals.

 

blog about the first piece of creative writing you ever did

This is likely proof that I never set out to be a writer: I can’t really remember. I vaguely recall writing crayon stories when I was very small though they weren’t very long and I doubt they had plots. I do remember writing a short story when I was maybe 12 or 13 for a creative writing class at arts camp that was a re-telling of the Frog Prince where the frog just sang Village People songs and said snarky things and then stayed a frog at the end.

 

An anecdote about your favorite book growing up. Or a bookstore you remember or a library.  &

I second the favourite book growing up suggestion. Or favourite NYC bookstores. Any new discoveries?

I had a lot of favorite books growing up. The ones I really remember vividly are Mail-Order Wings by Beatrice Gormley (the girl in the book orders wings from an ad in the back of a comic book, and the comic itself is a version of The Metamorphosis, so I had my first exposure to Kafka when I was about 8 years old) and The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. That’s the one that probably ensnared my imagination the most. I used to build Egyptian temples in the woods behind my house, with sticks and rocks and feathers and things. This is how I know I am not allergic to poison ivy.

My closest library when I was little was this one:

 photo from http://www.townofmarshfield.org

The Clift Rodgers Library in Marshfield, Massachusetts. (I’m not sure I ever realized when I was young that it was Clift and not Cliff.) It’s a tiny little space in a beautiful old white house that has been a library since, I believe, 1897. Upstairs is a consignment shop, so I still associate libraries with old things and mysterious treasures.

My favorite NYC bookstore so far, despite the fact that it intimidates me, is probably The Strand. So many books! I get book shopping anxiety there but sometimes it’s worth it. My favorite new discovery is Kinokuniya near Bryant Park, it has books in English as well as Japanese and lots of other delightful things. I’ve been very tempted to get the new Murakami even though I can’t read it.

 

That’s it for part one! Thank you for the topics! Parts two & three forthcoming.

By erin, ago

miscellaneous post of miscellany with fluffy cows

This post has no rhyme or reason unless accidental rhymes sneak in and also there’s a cow at the end. But I had a lot of things to post so I figured I would put them all in one post and they can keep each other company.

Firstly and likely most importantly, the high-pitched noise of utter delight you may have heard resonating around the internet yesterday was me being asked to interview/converse with Neil Gaiman for his upcoming NYC event at Symphony Space for The Ocean at the End of the Lane (which I loved) on June 19th. I am honored and elated and a little bit nervous, but I have two weeks to calm down. I will post more information when I have it. The event is already sold out. My apologies.

(Since I’ve been asked, I will absolutely hang out while Neil is signing All The Things and I will have a pen in case anyone wants something circusy signed, and they might have copies of the circus for sale, I’ll let you know. But I am primarily there to be a fangirl. I mean an interviewer.)

ocean1

Other things!

I saw this video floating around the internet before today and I didn’t click it at first because I am the last person in the world who hasn’t read any John Green (though I know who he is and I’ve been meaning to!) and I don’t follow him on Twitter or Tumblr but after seeing it linked & re-posted by people I know and read and admire, I clicked.

 


I love this so much I’m not sure if I can explain it. So many of my own feelings about books and publishing in one lovely, impassioned speech with emphatic swearing and I am going to go buy myself some John Green books from bookstores with booksellers now.

Speaking of books and not reading them: Game of Thrones. No spoilers, I promise. But it seems a good time to mention that I watch the HBO show even though I haven’t read George R. R. Martin’s books. While I am normally a supporter of reading books before watching adaptations in this particular case I’m actually glad I haven’t read them because I’m enjoying the story in the show more not knowing what’s going to happen. I like to be surprised. I may be one of the only viewers who rather liked the unexpectedness in the last episode, and also thought it made sense within the narrative. I could probably write an entire spoiler-filled post about it, but I’m supposed to be writing a novel myself.

And finally: fluffy cows. FLUFFY COWS. It delights me that they exist. I want to write them into something but I don’t know what. Maybe if I ever get back to that fairy tale thing.

fluffy cow

More about the cows over here on Laughing Squid. Photo via Lautner Farms.

By erin, ago

photo post

Because Tumblr & Instagram have been getting all the photos lately.

high line flowersFlowers on the High Line.

bloodmilk locketMy latest piece of gorgeous bloodmilk jewelry. Rose gold, and it’s a locket, too.

parker penNewest fountain pen acquisition (this is how I know I’m in writing mode, new fountain pens and photo blog posts).

Also I seem to be quite fond of rose gold lately.

vanishing actSpotted this gorgeous cover from across the bookshop and then realized it was my much-loved The Vanishing Act.

I adore this cover. More evocative than the hardcover, I think.

mini sugarsAnd last but not least, in celebration of International Fluevog Day, these are my Mini Sugar boots.

(It is not the easiest thing in the world to take a picture of your own boots.)

 

By erin, ago

music post

I’ve been on a search for new music lately because I listen to music when I write. I can’t write in silence but I’m picky about what I can write to. I also like to put single mood-setting tracks on repeat. (I probably should have kept a tally of how many times I listened to Iron & Wine’s “The Trapeze Swinger” while I was working on the circus.) (There is, for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, a circus playlist over here.)

And writing music is an interesting balance, at least for me, because it can’t be distracting but it can’t be so mellow that it makes me sleepy, either.

My writing rotation changes a lot, I’ve been making playlists that are mostly jazz (Coltrane, Ellington, some Charlie Parker) and some other bits and pieces that I keep adding to whenever something reminds me of how I think the new book should feel.

I just got the soundtrack to The Great Gatsby and while I predictably adore the Florence + the Machine song the one that’s getting the constant repeat treatment is the Gotye track, “Hearts a Mess,” even though it bothers me that the title apparently does not have an apostrophe. I might put it on the writing playlist, haven’t decided yet.

But my favorite recent musical discovery is something different.

This is a band called Houses, their new album is called A Quiet Darkness.

I literally clicked on this album in iTunes because I liked the cover. I’d never heard of them, had no idea what kind of music it would be, just found the cover art aesthetically pleasing.

Most fortuitous iTunes click ever.

Only had to preview a handful of tracks before buying the album, only listened to the album once before also buying their previous album. I can’t even describe them properly, the sound is so lovely and ethereal and layered and it is perfection as writing music.

I tweeted about them and they tweeted back because Twitter is MAGIC and as a result of said magic I now have that beautiful album in LP form with nicely giant cover art, hurrah:

houses lpHighly recommended if you are looking for new music, and you never know what you might create while listening to it.

By erin, ago

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.

By erin, ago