Art and shiny things…
This is both beautiful and profoundly disturbing…and perhaps more importantly, a template for poets on how to frame and market their work. Trailer for Eugenia Leigh’s poetry collection “Blood, Sparrows, and Sparrows.”
“Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows” – Book Trailer from Jess X Chen on Vimeo.
Remember to tell someone you love them today, or text a friend telling them you still remember that good memory you made together.
Remember to go outside sometimes and really see the sky, drink it in for a minute, blue and gray and green. Take a deep breath and feel the fullness of your being, you are here, you are really here in that moment.
It’s autumn weather and it’s time to curl up indoors. Let peace sink in, and gratitude for the strong walls that keep out the cold and the weather but let you watch rain fall like a flurry of starry silver on your windowpanes. Make some easy Parisian drinking chocolate. Eat fruit. Watch The Flash and re-read old romantic classics like Pride and Prejudice and North and South. Because it’s getting colder, you’ll probably be out a little less – start cooking more. Enjoy your roommate and/or family. Have people over every few weeks, and serve them simple, warm food, like lemon chicken orzo soup and sweet potato casserole, and lots of wine.
Deep-clean your room and bathroom, and string up some Christmas lights. They use very little electricity so leave them on all night long and watch them blinking until you fall asleep. Listen to more jazz and folk as the weather turns. Don’t be cross, or cold. Get up 40 minutes before you need to leave for work, and turn on plenty of lights, and drink tea or coffee while eating eggs fried with thyme, and buttered bread, slowly.
Love your home. Love the weather. Make art. Stay warm. Autumn is here.
–Love Coffeegirl
The Emperor’s Soul, Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson is easily one of the best fantasy writers alive today, and reading any book of his has the warm feeling of falling into the hands of a master. You are safe and secure in a beautifully constructed plot with compelling characters. The Emperor’s Soul, though short enough to be a novella rather than a novel, has these usual characteristics.
Shai is a trickster who has lived on her wits for as long as she can remember, until her latest and most dangerous heist yet – a break-in to the imperial palace – goes wrong and lands her in prison. Shai isn’t just a thief, however – she’s a Forger, a rare individual with the talent to change any object by rewriting its past with magic. When the arbiters, who rule the kingdom under the direction of Emperor Ashravan, offer her a bargain, she has no choice but to accept it. Ashravan has been rendered catatonic by a surprise assassination attempt, and they need Shai to change him back to who he used to be. Her talent is illegal, considered heretical by the majority of the empire, but they are desperate. Shai agrees, initially simply to placate her captors, but gradually she is pulled into the most impossible, daring task she has ever attempted: can she remake a soul?
The above painting has been a favorite since I first laid eyes on it as a kid – an incredibly tender portrait of a young married couple on their honeymoon, done by Sir Frederick Lord Leighton, an English pre-Raphaelite painter in the 19th century. The details are more vivid in a larger version, but I’m always struck but how delicately he holds her hand, and the attitude of complete trust with which she leans on him, every flow and line of her body and dress falling in to that movement.
I also always associated it with a favorite romantic poem – “The Last Ride Together” by Robert Browning. The old Victorian poets are still the masters of romance – this epic, delicate poem charged with love and longing is a childhood favorite – and it wasn’t until recently that I realized how appropriate it was that I’d always associated the intense tenderness of these two works (the painting and the poem) together, because there is in fact a connection – Leighton was commissioned by Robert Browning to design Elizabeth Browning’s gravestone.
In “The Last Ride Together,” two lovers ride together before being parted.
I said–Then, dearest, since ’tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seem’d meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be–
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,–I claim
Only a memory of the same,
–And this beside, if you will not blame;
Your leave for one more last ride with me.
Omid Asadi makes the most exquisite hand-cut leaf art.
Stephen Colbert has a hilarious take on the Orlando Bloom/Justin Bieber spat. This is real news, folks. And Mashable has all the funniest Twitter responses.
The manga Soul Reviver, which is about two soul revivers who have the ability to move between the worlds of the living and the dead and to bring certain people back whose mission on Earth was not complete at the time of their demise, is coming to Hollywood as a live action movie. I am excited. RT
Lifehacker is running an experiment on eating well on only $35 a week. It’s fascinating and important. RT
Really gorgeous cover of Sam Smith’s “Stay with Me” by, of all people, Vin Diesel (love that man. Is there nothing he can’t do?). The actor’s voice is surprisingly deep-timbred and he gives it a sexy, rich depth.
How did I miss this at the time? Oh right…I was living in a third-world country. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Seinfeld reunite to sing The Sound of Music. It’s perfection. Also, they have incredible chemistry.
Endless Books series by Dina Balenko
Coffee and Irony 