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November 12, 2015 · 11:25 AM

Words and Other Things

My best friend, Liz, and my best-friend-in-law, Martyn, loaned me a bunch of books the other day. I just finished one of them. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is a book about a guy who finds a book written about a documentary that doesn’t exist, that features a house that doesn’t exist, that was filmed by a man who doesn’t exist. House of Leaves is a work of fiction, so technically if you read it, you are reading a book about a guy who doesn’t exist, who finds a book that doesn’t exist, written about a documentary that doesn’t exist, which features a house that doesn’t exist, that was filmed by a man who doesn’t exist.

You should read it. It’s pretty good. But very intense. Not for the young of heart or the young of age. Ye be warned.

The next book is The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson. I’m still working on it, but so far as I can tell it is about a porn star who gets into a terrible car crash after combining cocaine, bourbon, and driving. The crash results in lots of fire burning him all over his body, and then he has a chat with a crazy lady while in the hospital. The chat is the thing I wanted to quote here, because it made me giggle with disproportionate glee.

I indicated the little statue on the bedside table. “I like the gargoyle.”

“Not a gargoyle. It’s a grotesque.”

“You say oyster, I say erster.”

“I ain’t gonna stop eating ersters,” Marianne Engel replied, “but that’s a grotesque. A gargoyle’s a waterspout.”

“Everyone calls these things gargoyles.”

“Everyone’s wrong.”

— The Gargoyle, pg. 81

See? It proves something that was never called into question in the first place. I once did thirty seconds of research on Wikipedia and now, years later, I’m reading a book that confirms my research and I’m all, “Yay! This makes me happy.” I just thought I’d share. It’s a good read so far.

Finally, my computer broke recently. I have the worst luck with computers. But this time I don’t mean it crashed or it got a virus. I mean it literally broke. It started coming apart at the seams. It’s currently being held together with duct tape and binder clips.

So I got a Mac.

Good news: I came up with a new comic idea. I was inspired by English class and Shakespeare, since lately I’ve been working toward getting my teaching certification so I can teach high school English. Without meaning to, this comic became a bit of an homage to Kate Beaton’s comic, Hark! A Vagrant. Though it was not intended, I am in no way sorry. Beaton’s work is some of the funniest I’ve ever seen.

Bad news: My copy of Photoshop Elements is for PCs only.

Results: I drew the comic and then took pictures of each panel. Enjoy!

Writer’s Block
11/11/15
WB Panel 1_1
WB Panel 1_2
WB Panel 1_3
redo 2_1(1)
WB Panel 1_5
WB Panel REDO

A History of My Life as Told by Books – The Early Years

I’ve wanted to do another post for a while now, but I recently caught a cold that has left me quite angry at the way my immune system is running things. You’d think after more than twenty years of practice it would’ve gotten its act together, but no. So here I am, kinda feeling crappy and wanting to write a blog post, so I’m going to take the easy way out. I’m going to give you a brief history of my life using the books that I remember most fondly. We’ll be starting, obviously, with my early childhood.

My younger years were populated with picture books like any other kid’s. I grew up with the company of such characters as Amelia Bedelia and Aunt Isabel.

I learned to bake bread…

…well, maybe not. I don’t think we ever did try any of the recipes included in the book, but boy did they sound tasty! That’s got to count for something.

The most vivid memories I have are of Bill Peet’s wonderful stories, namely No Such Things and The Whingdingdilly, though How Droofus the Dragon Lost His Head was later thrown into the mix.

I was a huge horse fan (as you will see in one of my next posts). Still am. The horse-things on the cover of No Such Things appear later in the book, and my mother used to make black-and-white copies of their pages so we could color them in with our own designs and patterns. I’m sure she even has some of those pictures saved somewhere.

I have another memory of when I was first learning to read. There was a picture book about two sisters that I was reading to my mom. I don’t remember the title or even what happened in it, but I remember coming to the word “any” and guessing correctly that the “a” was pronounced like the “e” in “pet” and not like the “a” in “cat.” Which sort of leads me to something else…

I think the point of children’s books is that you are supposed to learn a lesson from them. And maybe I did, without even realizing it. I certainly learned to love reading. And maybe Stephanie’s Ponytail did teach me that I should be proud to be my own, unique self.

I don’t remember what Elizabeth and Larry taught me, but it did make me laugh.

I even read it out loud to my first grade class. They laughed, too.

These books didn’t necessarily shape my childhood, but they were an important part of it. I could really go on for hours about all the ones I read and loved.

Winnie the Witch taught me that you shouldn’t try to change others, and that thinking outside the box can help solve your problems…

I read my brother’s Magic School Bus books…

It took us two nights, but my mom and I loved every minute and every page of The Best Loved Doll…

These books will stay with me for a long time. And I hope to be able to read them to my own children one day. So that maybe when they’re all grown up they can blog about it. Or whatever futuristic equivalent they’ll have.

It makes me very happy to share these with you. Below I am pasting some more covers of books I remember and love, just because I believe they deserve to be recognized. If you think I left out any good ones, you should let me know.