foreign cities
I spy with my little eye, somewhere that I haven't explored before...
Check out Louise's blog www.52suburbs.com for more information.
All images used are courtesy of Louise Hawson, words and design courtesy of me.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Check out Louise's blog www.52suburbs.com for more information.
All images used are courtesy of Louise Hawson, words and design courtesy of me.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
date a girl who reads
I'd claim the below words as my own, but that would be a little rude....
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by God, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
Date A Girl Who Reads, Rosemarie Urquico
Thursday, July 28, 2011
classics? no thanks
I refuse to apologise for my love of true crime and trashy crime novels. But every so often some high-brow book-snob will sneer at my choice of reading material. Oh, I’m not furthering my intellect? Not learning anything am I? Ahh pretty sure I could commit the perfect murder* if I were so inclined thanks to my extensive collection of Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerriston, Harlen Coban, James Patterson et al. Now if delving into the depths and depravities of the human psyche isn’t expanding my mind I don’t know what is.
Occasionally the book snobbery gets to me and I think I should get some literary culture into me. Enter the Penguin Classic. Ok some of them are not exactly up there intellectually, but baby steps – let’s not escalate to murder before we’re charged with assault.
I pick the most murder-y Penguin Classic I can find on the shelf and have every intention of reaching the last page, but 8 pages in it inevitably ends up kicked under the bed with yesterday’s laundry. The problem, I think, is I am far too impatient to wait for the classics to get to the point. Yes, I know characterisation, scene building and all that is important but can’t I just have a little taste of murder first? That’s not to say a contemporary authors work is lacking in any of the above techniques, they just do it a little differently and I do love how they generally throw a few (or a lot) dead bodies around in the first chapter.
Which leads me to my next point; the classics (in my not so humble opinion) are so sanitized. No, I don’t want you to allude to how the victim was killed; I want all the gory details from the first arterial spray to the final gurgling breath. I am a typical Gen Y and I am unashamedly desensitized to fictional violence.
At least I know Mark Twain is with me on this one – “a classic is something everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read”
Although a copy of Lord of the Flies was waiting for me when I got home last night. I remember enjoying it back in year 8 so hopefully I still like it this time around.
*I’m probably not going to murder anyone anytime soon…
Saturday, July 16, 2011
first impression
In our everyday travels people cross our paths. How close are our perceptions to reality?
Friday, July 8, 2011
too many books
I don't think there is actually such a thing as too many books per se, but I have to many books for my room. They are pretty much stacked up on every available surface - one day they will probably all fall down and I'll be known as the crazy book hoarder who was crushed by her books...
So in order to prevent this, the day has come for me to let some go. It's kind of like giving up my children, not that I have children but when I do I'll probably be cursed with little turds and will love my books more anyway. Back to the point - I'm setting a collection of books free into the wild with the help of bookcrossing.com
Fellow book readers of the Inner West keep an eye out for a lonely looking book at your favorite cafe/park bench/train station/street corner.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
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