Waiting For Bilbo (part 2)

Hope you're all having a good holiday season! I'm having much fun seeing friends and family, plus doing a lot of painting. I'll be putting some of the items above (mini fridge magnets, Screamer series) and below (Menagerie series) up for sale in my Etsy store.

I found the tiny Screamer canvases at Gwartzman's Art Supplies on Spadina Avenue: 2" x 2" x ".3 wood blocks wrapped in canvas. With a magnetic strip stuck to their backs, they make great fridge magnets.



I've sold enough mini-paintings at this point that I've started realizing I need a better way of tracking where each piece goes, both for finances and customer info. So I'm using my membership at Lynda.com to learn Filemaker Pro 9; I'd like to build a customized database for my art and also update the database I have for my writing.



For those interested, I've revamped Waiting For Frodo to make it easier to navigate from the main page, plus I've set up the Waiting For Bilbo site.

I'll be launching Waiting For Bilbo sometime next year, not sure exactly when yet. If you'd like to be kept informed about when new strips are posted, please fill out this form.

I haven't yet decided if I'm going to keep any of the same characters. Except for Rosie, of course -- I -have- to keep Rosie. :-)







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Autumn's the BEST season

Autumn is the best season. Summer's too hot, winter's too cold, spring's too wet. I took the photo above while walking through a cemetery with my Xti/Sigma 30/1.4.

Congrats to my friend Ju Honisch on the publication of her first book of short stories! Bisse was launched October 1st and published by Hexentor Verlag (Jürgen G. Hahn, Albrechtstr. 65, 12103 Berlin). It can be ordered from the publisher (EUR 10.- plus postage) or from Amazon.de (should be listed in a few weeks).



The book is in German and there's no English translation available yet, sadly. According to Ju (who kindly provided me with an English press release), the stories sound deliciously creepy:

"BISSE" (in English: "Bites") contains the everyday creepiness of life, abstruse tendencies of your nice next door neighbour, the sudden abyss found in the souls of 'perfectly normal' people, and mythical beings who - set against the average urban dweller and his idiosyncracies - lose a great deal of their scariness. The horror stories derive their suspense from the warped psychology of their protagonists and not from splatter or loosely scattered body parts. If you like stories with a twist, you will like those."

My German is absymal, but I still plan to buy a copy because I figure I'll have even more incentive to improve!

Spent last night and most of today finishing up some comics for NaNoWriMo, which begins next month, and painting pottery. I'm especially excited about the latter! My friend Luisa has been doing pottery for a while; she still considers herself an amateur but I love her work. Here's a gorgeous shaped bowl she made for us:



Anyway, she recently asked me if I was interested in collaborating on some pottery. She'd make the pottery, I'd paint it (however I wanted), and she'd glaze and fire it. Yesterday I learned two new words: bisqueware and greenware. Bisqueware is pottery that has been fired once but not glazed (I think). It's more fragile resists most water. Greenware is an unfired clay form that can be destroyed by water.

I've only painted two pieces of pottery before, and those were from a "Paint Your Own Pottery" place where you choose from already-made pottery. I made a mug and a tile for Jeff, but the paint turned out more textured than I expected though Jeff said he loved them anyway:



The guy in the photo is Mr. Grumpypants, which is Jeff's nickname sometimes. His sister taught it to me. :-)

Luisa's given me a piece of greenware and one of bisqueware.

With Luisa's pottery, I was way more nervous...she MADE these pieces by HAND, after all! I was so worried about screwing up. What if I mis-paint something? I can't Un-do or Delete Layer like I can when digitally painting! I still need way more practice. Anyway, I'll post pics of any pieces that she and I are happy with (or more realistically, are willing to have exposed to public scrutiny).

Looking forward to seeing Allison tonight! She's recording her part for a new song I've written, and I'm experimenting with a new slow cooker recipe: Beef with Chickpeas and Curry. I love my slow cooker; some brief prep, throw stuff in the cooker, then forget about it until dinnertime.

Happy birthday to my friend Andy today...






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The Litter Guy, Uglies and the Happy Ending Foundation hoax

I was on my way to meet Luisa for dinner last night when I ran into the fellow above. Read more about Marc the Litter Guy in my blogTO post. I happened to have my DSLR with my Sigma 30/1.4 lens because I knew I wanted to take pics at Penelope. My Toronto friends have all been very patient about my taking pics of everyone's meal before we start eating. :-)



Above: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. Recently finished this book for young people and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's one of the books I picked up during my Rochester visit. Ironic how it ties into the recent fashion and body consciousness discussion.



Yesterday I mentioned an article about a woman who was campaigning against kids' books that didn't have happy endings. Well, it turns out that Adrienne Small, Clare Hughes and the Happy Endings Foundation were all part of an elaborate hoax, a marketing ploy by ArtScience to promote the Lemony Snicket books (A Series Of Unfortunate Events).

I've posted my response to this in Inkygirl: Happy Ending Foundation / Lemony Snicket hoax: In Poor Taste?.



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Rochester trip (part 3)

It's my sister's birthday today! Ruth's newest book is now available in bookstores. Visit her Web page for Me And My Brother to see sample pages and sketches.

Speaking of kids' books, one of the highlights of our Strong National Museum Of Play visit was seeing sample pages of the original manuscript for Charlotte's Web in Reading Adventureland:



From a writer's perspective, it was fascinating to examine some of E.B. White's edits. Digital word processing is a godsend for writers, but one of the downsides is the disappearance of historical documents like this one. Very few people correspond by paper mail compared to in the past, and while I suppose it's possible to publish an electronic correspondence, it just isn't the same.

But I digress. Back to our Rochester trip...

Do check out Allison's reports and photos in Livejournal, including some great shots that she took in the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden. The garden is the largest indoor butterfly garden in New York. You have to pay a small extra fee to be admitted, but it's well worth it.

I'd love to go back to the museum someday. I'd like more time to check out check out the 900-gallon coral reef tank as well as the National Toy Hall Of Fame. We were all amused to see that the inductee in 2005 was the Cardboard Box. Interesting to read that the first cardboard box was developed in 1879 by American Robert Gair.

Walter has posted photos from the trip in Flickr. David Wheeler has posted an LJ report about our concert as well as photos in Flickr.



Above: part of a dragon lamp in the Halls' living room. John and Joanne have a wonderful house full of all kinds of interesting things to see, corners to explore. And BOOKS...lots and lots of books.

If I could expand my basement office into a bigger place, it would look like John's and Joanne's house. :-) I felt immediately comfortable and at home.

And they had a very cool Heather Bruton painting on the wall of their downstairs bathroom:



In fact, I'm inspired to work on my own office some more. There are still so many blank wall spaces I could be filling up with pictures and paintings! Here's my office tree painting (my first time using acrylics) before I added anything else:




Again...many thanks to John and Joanne for the invite!



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Schoolhouse Rock and Facebook apps

One of my favourite Schoolhouse Rock videos when I was little was "Figure Eight." Out of curiosity, I went searching for it on YouTube.

And of course it was there:




The singer, I discovered, was Blossom Dearie: a New York jazz singer who sang on several other Schoolhouse Rock videos (Unpack Your Adjectives, Mother Necessity) and has also been heard on many soundtracks including Kissing Jessica Stein, The Squid and the Whale and The Adventures of Felix.

Curious about other Schoolhouse Rock singers? Check out Where Are They Now - The Schoolhouse Rock Singers. So what was YOUR favourite Schoolhouse Rock song? My all-time favourite Schoolhouse Rock song remains "Interjections":



The singer: Ezra Mohawk, who has performed with Frank Zappa and Jerry Garcia, among others.

Wow. Amazing how looking for ONE tiny bit of info can suck you right into The Black Hole That Is The Internet Timesink.

Must..stop...following...links...

Hey, but speaking of links, I have a review of Hashimoto up on blogTO. Hashimoto is one of our favourite restaurants; it's a Japanese restaurant that specializes in the kaiseki tradition: a multi-course tasting menu, chosen by the chef.

And here's some exciting news:

Inkygirl: Daily Diversions For Writers now has a mobile version available, for those dying to read it on their cell phones! Interesting to note that Google has also officially announced Adsense for mobile devices.

You can also get a mobile version of Blatherings:



If you're interested in getting a mobile version of your own blog, click here.

To you tech-types out there: Facebook backers have created a $10 million fund for start-up grants, particularly for those with ideas for innovative Facebook applications. Projects don't need to be profit-focused.

So here's my question: what Facebook app would YOU like to see? Serious AND non-serious ideas welcome. Here are some of my suggestions:

FACEBOOK APPLICATIONS I'D LIKE TO SEE:

Preemptive Strike: Enables a user to block invites to specific applications, with a polite (or not, if desired) user-specified message to those sending the invite. For example, I have no desire to join the Facebook-wide Ninja/Pirate/Zombie battle going on but constantly get invites which I have to deal with individually. And while I'd love to play online Scrabble, I lack the time.

Timekeeper Wrist Slap: A user can enter the maximum amount of time he or she wants to spend on Facebook each day (or week, whatever). Once you exceed that time limit, you get a warning. Options of increasing levels of warning obnoxiousness. Somehow I doubt that Facebook would approve of this app, though.



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