etsy

so on the website www.etsy.com where you can buy pretty much anything, it's like ebay but you are not bidding on the products. if you want it, you just buy it. most of the stuff is hand made, which makes it even cooler. so while looking around on the site i found a charles bukowski altered antique plate. just awesome! hehe. here's the link if you'd like to buy it. hehe. here's a picture of the plate.

edgar allan poe oil painting

so on entertainmentearth.com you can buy an edgar allan poe oil painting. i don't know if i would want it, but it's pretty cool looking. it's just a portrait of the writer. but it's still cool looking. here it is...

hockey goalie masks

over the years hockey has let the goalies paint different pictures on their masks. and there has been great goalie masks. in the 90's goalie curtis joseph for the st louis blues (1995) had stephen king's cujo painted on his helmet. cujo was his nickname from teammates combined the first two letters of his first name and his last name. while the rabid beast has appeared with more detail on joseph's different teams over the years, it all started with his first team, the blues.

quarter of a century

yesterday was my 25th birthday. i had a great day. i worked (which was no fun) but then i went to the blackhawks game that night which was great. they won in a shoot out and two of my favorite players scored; kane and toews. so over all it was a great birthday.

every day i get an email from the new york times with the days headlines. and yesterday one of the headlines was called this: light out, huck, they still want to civilize you. and it was written by michiko kukutani. the article was about how alan gribben, a professor of english at auburn university, at montgomery, alabama, has produced a new edition of mark twain’s novel, huckleberry finn, that replaces the word “nigger” with "slave".  Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.


Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River.


Haven’t we learned by now that removing books from the curriculum just deprives children of exposure to classic works of literature? Worse, it relieves teachers of the fundamental responsibility of putting such books in context — of helping students understand that “Huckleberry Finn” actually stands as a powerful indictment of slavery (with Nigger Jim its most noble character), of using its contested language as an opportunity to explore the painful complexities of race relations in this country. To censor or redact books on school reading lists is a form of denial: shutting the door on harsh historical realities — whitewashing them or pretending they do not exist.


Mr. Gribben’s effort to update “Huckleberry Finn” (published in an edition with “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by NewSouth Books), ratifies the narcissistic contemporary belief that art should be inoffensive and accessible; that books, plays and poetry from other times and places should somehow be made to conform to today’s democratic ideals. It’s like the politically correct efforts in the ’80s to exile great authors like Conrad and Melville from the canon because their work does not feature enough women or projects colonialist attitudes.


Efforts to sanitize classic literature have a long, undistinguished history. Everything from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” to Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” have been challenged or have suffered at the hands of uptight editors. There have even been purified versions of the Bible (all that sex and violence!). Sometimes the urge to expurgate (if not outright ban) comes from the right, evangelicals and conservatives, worried about blasphemy, profane language and sexual innuendo. Fundamentalist groups, for instance, have tried to have dictionaries banned because of definitions offered for words like hot, tail, ball and nuts.


In other cases the drive to sanitize comes from the left, eager to impose its own multicultural, feminist worldviews and worried about offending religious or ethnic groups. Michael Radford’s 2004 film version of “The Merchant of Venice” (starring Al Pacino) revised the play to elide potentially offensive material, serving up a nicer, more sympathetic Shylock and blunting tough questions about anti-Semitism. More absurdly, a British theater company in 2002 changed the title of its production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” to "the bellringer of notre dame."


Ballantine Books published an expurgated version of “Fahrenheit 451,” Ray Bradbury’s celebrated sci-fi classic about book banning, in which words like “hell” and “abortion” were deleted; it was reportedly 13 years before Mr. Bradbury became aware of the changes and demanded that the original version be restored.


Whether it comes from conservatives or liberals, there is a patronizing Big Brother aspect to these literary fumigations. We, the censors, need to protect you, the naïve, delicate reader. We, the editors, need to police writers (even those from other eras), who might have penned something that might be offensive to someone sometime. 

bunny

there is a comic called bunny by huw davies that i totally love. and over the years he has made many comments on different literature and i thought i would share the comics with everyone.

http://bunny-comic.com/50.html
http://bunny-comic.com/76.html
http://bunny-comic.com/104.html
http://bunny-comic.com/127.html
http://bunny-comic.com/132.html
http://bunny-comic.com/136.html (this comic doesn't have anything to do with writing; but those of you who have been following this blog know my love for muse and so i had to share the muse comic on here)
http://bunny-comic.com/173.html
http://bunny-comic.com/178.html
http://bunny-comic.com/183.html
http://bunny-comic.com/188.html
http://bunny-comic.com/267.html
http://bunny-comic.com/312.html (another muse bunny comic)
http://bunny-comic.com/318.html
http://bunny-comic.com/389.html
http://bunny-comic.com/418.html
http://bunny-comic.com/447.html
http://bunny-comic.com/466.html
http://bunny-comic.com/485.html

literary jewels

jeremy may is an artist that creates rings and other jewelery out of the pages of literary works. here are some pictures of his work. you can go to his website here.

 

heart of darkness graphic novel

selfmadehero has published heart of darkness as a graphic novel. the cover art alone looks awesome. i can only imagine what the art looks like inside.

people reading around the world

steve mccury is a famous photojournalist that you would know best from this photo. well through his travels across the world, he has also taken photo's of people reading. mccurry says: "There’s an intimacy people have with a book and its author that is similar, what couples have. [Reading] is a common link in our shared humanity, a thing we all do that is regardless of where we are economically or socially." so i thought i would share some of his photo's that he took of people reading. you can find all of the photo's on his blog.

covers still matter

with the digital age coming to great heights these days, with e readers and all, the question of what will happen to book covers comes into question. will they still be as important as they use to be. personally, the only book reader i see myself getting is the ipad. and that's because it does so much more then just read books. so i'm not a fan of book readers. i will be buying books for a long time into the future. so i think that book covers are still just as important as they have always been. espically, i am currently working on my chapbook, and the cover will be very important to me. well, here's a book that has gotten its self banned for the cover it has.

annabel lyon's novel the golden mean, has gotten banned. the cover features a naked man lying on the back of an equally naked white horse. stores across canada and the UK are selling the book, lyons revealed on her blog though, that british columbia ferry company, bc ferries, is not stocking it. what i find interesting is that bc ferries asked the book's publisher, random house canada, that it would carry the book if it featured a "belly band" wrapped around the offending parts. but random house refused, and the transportation company decided against stocking the title. and i think good for random house for not bowing down to the demands of the company. annabel hasn't taken the banning to heart for she wrote on her blog ""Oh, BC Ferries. You have one too, you know you do!"

here's a picture of the cover of the book:

out of print clothing

found this awesome website called out of print clothing that sells tshirts that have out of print book covers on the shirt. and when you buy the shirt the website donates one book to a community in need through their partner Books For Africa.

their mission states this:
Out of Print celebrates the world’s great stories through fashion. Our shirts feature iconic and often out of print book covers. Some are classics, some are just curious enough to make great t-shirts, but all are striking works of art.
We work closely with artists, authors and publishers to license the content that ends up in our collections. Each shirt is treated to feel soft and worn like a well-read book.
In addition to spreading the joy of reading through our tees, we acknowledge that many parts of the world don't have access to books at all. We are working to change that. For each shirt we sell, one book is donated to a community in need through our partner Books For Africa.
How we read is changing as we move further into the digital age. It's unclear what the role of the book cover will be in this new era, but we feel it's more important than ever to reflect on our own individual experiences with great literary art before it's forever changed.

the shirts i want are: catcher in the rye, brave new world, slaughter house five, moby dick, fahrenheit 451.

dragons of the hourglass mage

so i know this blog is about writing and everything but i just have to share this cover art. i'm a huge(!) dragonlance fan and have been for years. dragonlance is the series created by margaret weis and tracy hickman. and they have had some amazing cover art for their books. well i have finally purchased the last of the books they said they would write for the series; dragons of the hourglass mage. and i just love the cover art, that i had to share it with all of you.

as a side note, if your looking for a great fantasy series, you should definatly read the dragonlance books!

kickstarter part 2

up date on the wonderful kickstarter project i was telling you about. in the 3 days left for them to raise the money, they raised $1400 more than they needed! woot woot! i'm so glad this project got the money it needed. here's the link again if you would like to check it out. and congrats to the desert island supply co!

kickstarter

so i don't know if you've noticed, but on my list of websites to visit i have kickstarter. which is this great website that lets people start projects with the help of people from all over the country. you pledge so much money and then the people from the project give you things in return of pledging your money. but you don't have to pay what you pledge unless the project reaches it's projected goal within a certain amount of time.

so for example: say i'm trying to publish a book of poems. so i figure i'm going to need about $5000 to fund the whole thing. so i say on kickstarter, i need that much money. and if you pledge say $10 i'll give you an individual poem signed by me. if you pledge $50 i'll give you the whole book of poems numbered and signed by me. so on and so forth. but you only have to pay your money if i reach my $5000 goal.

well i ran across this kickstarter project and it only has until august 7th to reach it's goal. i wanted to share it with you for it's a writing group trying to raise money to better their writing space. the group is called the desert island supply co (disco) and it's a writing group for kids aging from 6-18. i think this is a great little group and should reach it's goal. here's the link to this specific kickstarter.

happy birthday to me!

today this blog is one year old! woot woot! i can't believe i've been doing this for a year. it doesn't seem that long. it started out as a simple blog for a story i was writing. then i decided to change the direction and write about all things to do with writing. adding along the way things that are going on with my writing.  for today's post i think i'm going to highlight different posts i have done over the year. so here are some of my favorite posts from this past year. 

the very first post i ever did
critics
tuna poem
celebrate banned books
the wheel of time turns
dr. horrible comic review
death
life is full of them
the first quoteables
world war z
the power of words
poetry coat
muse quoteables
poetry/art swap
a lighted carousel

wow, if you went back and read all of those, your amazing! thanks for sticking with me and i hope the next year is just as amazing as this past year has been. keep writing and keep reading. 

the language of conservation

poets house has designed a program to make zoo goers more aware of the evironmental impact that people have on this world. with the help of the american library association the outcome of the project will be shared in libraries across the country. the program is in 5 different cities: new orleans, milwaukee, little rock, jacksonville, and chicago and features poets-in-residence that collaborate with wildlife biologists and exhibit designers to curate exhibitions in zoos that feature poems celebrating the natural world and the connection between species. 

i think is very exciting; for both the zoos and for the poets. i hope the installations will last all summer long at the zoos. thankfully i live where i can go to both milwaukee's and chicago's. i won't get to go to the opening day's, but i for sure will be going to see them. i love the zoo and i love poetry. there's no better combination. i have a mini update - the milwukee installation is a permanent addition to the zoo.

part of the installation in new orleans.

a lighted carousel - the final frontier

so today at work i brought my friend who took the carousel picture - i brought him the poem i had written to go with the picture. he said that he liked the poem. and he said he really liked the first line "safe in the dark" for that's not a normal thing. people don't normally say they are safe in the dark. i'm so glad that he liked the poem. and i'm so glad that he liked that line. it's one of my personal favorites of the poem and i think it's perfect for the beginning of it. so i gave him the poem since it was his picture that inspired me to write it. i just love that photo! all of his photo's were great but that one i just can't stop loving. just amazing! and just because i can't get over the picture i'm going to share it again.

jeremy also read the poem and he said he liked it. he didn't want to judge the photo yet for it was a picture taken of a picture. but he said that the poem made him think of a person who had died and their spouse is waiting for them on the other side and then at the end the couple are together. and even though that's not the thought i had behind the poem, i still like to hear what he thinks. it's always fun to hear what a person thinks a poem means. for you never know until the poet actually says what it means. i'm going to be stingy and not share. but hey that's ok. that's just how i roll (i can't believe i just wrote that).

ok i'm going to stop gushing about the photo. i just love it so much! and just so amazing that it inspired me. so my thanks go to my dear friend for letting me have the photo that has inspired me so much.

a lighted carousel part 2

well i have finished the poem. i just love the photo and i love that it inspired me to write. stuff like that is just the best. i love when i'm inspired instead of making myself sit down and write. so i thought i would share the photo again and then share the poem. hope you like it.

safe in the dark

all i see are the lights

shining on me

i reach out to them

they swirl past me

round and round and round

i sit and wait

for the right time to move

to grab

to take hold of

the lights

they guide me

round and round and round

the lights shine bright

your hand reaches out of the dark

takes hold of me

pulls me
into the light

you hold me tight

round and round and round

sharing the secrets of the light

a lighted carousel

last month i had mentioned that i swapped poetry for art with a friend of mine at work. here's the story if you don't remember. well this week i had brought in my photography to show him. we had been talking alot about art so i didn't mind too much showing him what i had done. i'm no where near being a professional and i wanted to know what he would think about it, since he actually went to school for art. he said he liked them and i hope he was telling the truth. well we had got to talking and so we decided on a photo swap. i would give him one of my photo's and he would give me one of his. well he picked a photo i had taken just for the texture, it's a close up of tree bark. i really like the photo for the sun is hitting it just perfect. here's the photo.

not the best picture of it, but i think you get the idea. so the next day after he picked this photo, i brought it in all framed and matted and i think i surprised him. again he said he liked it and again i hope he was telling the truth. i don't think he would say he liked it if he didn't. well for the picture he was going to give to me, he gave me a stack of photo's he took and let me pick from them. well there were two that i really liked and he said that i could have them both. which i thought was really nice of him. here are the pictures i got from him.

  i'm totally in love with this picture and just keep loving it whenever i look at it is this one:

i just love(!) this photo. there's just something about it i can't get over. i love how you can only tell it's a carousel by the lights. i love the picture so much that it has inspired me to write a poem. when i have the finished poem i will share it on here. i just love this photo! i'm so thankful that he let me have it.  

rak visual poetry

sorry this is a little late, but i'm sharing it now. see jeremy was nice enough to buy for me a collection of art from this guy at c2e2. yes i know c2e2 was a month ago. the art that was from this guy was called visual poetry. art that inspires thought. which to me is all art. the artist is RAK. and i saw his stuff last year at wizard world and bought a card that was one of the visual poetry called drifting away. on that card there is a picture and a poem. i really like the picture and thought that the poem wasn't that bad. so when i went to c2e2 this year and saw the guy again and i got all excited. i bought one of his superfreak cards for my mom (it was lucy for my mom loves lucy). jeremy and janell bought stuff from the guy also. well as the day went on jeremy had some surprises for me and his sister. he bought janell some comics and surprised her with them (she got one signed by the editor and chief of marvel) and he surprised me with the everyman visual poetry collection book that RAK had.

some of the pictures in the collection are so amazing i fell in love with them right away. for me, some are a little too obvious with what they mean and stand for. but either way i thought it was really nice of jeremy to buy it for me. and i think it's really cool of this guy to do it. its definalty different art from his superfreaks. and the art definatly inspires poetry - in my mind at least. i espically like the one picture that actually has a poem right with it. it's not the best poetry i've ever seen, but it's not horrible poetry either. one thing that i'm not a big fan of with this collection, is that with every drawing he adds a little message with them. like with the picture 'the great depression' he adds in there if you are feeling sad do this this and this to feel better. it's nice that he is trying to help others but, i don't think that is needed. just have the art speak for it's self and the message will get out there. over all though i like the colleciton. so here are some pictures of the collection. sorry the quality of the photos are bad. my point-and-shoot camera is old and i need a new one. hope you like them.

this is the cover of the collection.

some pages in the collection. i really like the locked away picture (on the right).

the great depression (the picture on the left) is one i was talking about that is just a little obvious with its message. i don't think that the sad face is needed in the background. drifting away (on the right) is the original card i bought last year at wizard world and what got me interested in this guy.

the betrayal is one of my favorites of RAK's. i really love this drawing.

walking dead

so i finished the walking dead comic collection that i had bought. it collected the first 48 comics of the series. it is currently on #71 (or right around there, i'm too lazy to look it up right now). i really like the comic. i had bought it at c2e2 for only $30. which is the cheapest i've ever seen it. on amazon you could get it for $45 which is a cut from the normal retail of about $70. so yeah, i got a crazy good deal.

i really like the comic for it's just in black and white. so to me it forcuses more on the story then the art. which as a struggeling writer, i like to see. don't get me wrong, i love good art. i wouldn't be getting comics if i didn't like art. but, i like when the story drives the comic instead of the art. and this comic has a good story. it's about the zombie apocalypse; it follows a group of people that have servived it and are now trying to live in a world filled with zombies. to me the charactors are well written and actually evolve. i like that the story isn't just about killing zombies; which you tend to find in comics and movies that are about zombies.

i recommend this book to any comic book readers out there. well to any readers out there. it's really good. i enjoyed it and now i am impatient to get the next collection. and just incase your wondering, i don't only read zombie books. honestly world war z and the walking dead are the only ones i have ever read. but the two i have read have been really good ones.