Sunday, September 29, 2019

Incoming Mail

Incoming mail! I believe these are all the letters I haven't responded to yet.
Every one is a delight to receive in my mailbox!


Thursday, September 26, 2019

WRP 8: Croatia

World Reading Project, Book #8

Croatia
Adios, Cowboy, by Olja Savičević, 2016

This book was not exactly my cup of tea because of the style. The author is also a poet and the writing has the greater need for interpretation that I associate with poetry. The first part of the book is told from the perspective of Dada, the main character, and it's a bit all over the place. I couldn't tell if certain sections were in the present or if they were flashbacks. And the dialogue was not always clear. But it was engaging enough to continue. The content of this book was also rather dark.

Dada has come home to Split to help take care of her mom and also to investigate her brother's suicide. He had gotten involved with some unsavory characters and she's sort of trying to figure out if he had become violent/bad like them. The title, Adios Cowboy, comes from the fact that a lot of westerns were shot in Croatia. Dada's brother adored westerns and at the end of the book there's a surreal scene on the set of a new movie being filmed. There's also an Iroquois family that lives in town, I'm assuming who immigrated there to work in the movies. Before I understood that it was rather confusing. Dada talks about playing "cowboys and indians" as a child and it was hard to tell if the Iroquois family was actually Iroquois or if it was part of the make believe. The reviews on the back of the book said that this was a funny book, and I don't really agree. But it was interesting.

I guess I said the writing wasn't really my cup of tea, but I did love these two quotes: 


"There’s a storm out at sea and perhaps all the houses and trees in the town will be destroyed, perhaps a real catastrophe will occur, something important and elemental, that will spin me round like a forceful slap, but not even that would shake me out of my inability to turn something round in myself, to make a quite small movement, like breathing, without collapsing."


"She listens to the underground shifting beneath the surface of the soil- down there nothing has changed. Under the earth there is abundant life and death: tubers and bulbs turn into humus and a mole scratches its crisp crust, ants grind grains of red soil into friable granules, and in the deeper layers fat white worms munch the hearts of the dead, an underground stream bursts its way through the clay; in the dense saturated darkness silver and gold veins explode, minerals crackle, mandrake roots scream, while dead occupiers rearrange their bones. Everything that falls onto the earth becomes nourishment, which someone on the underside of the pavement reheats, melts, and sucks up through little straws. If you don’t believe this, ask yourself where all those fruits and large or small animal corpses, which no one collects or buries, disappear. And if you still don’t believe it- leave a dead dog in a field and in sixty days you will find only a dry tail. That’s why Maria listens and never lies on the earth for long."

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Outgoing Mail

Some more outgoing mail:

Collage postcard for swapbot


mail art envelope with flat surprise for swap bot


Handmade postcard for swapbot swap


So excited for this whole series of movie monsters!!! The first swap is for Bride of Frankenstein mailart! I think the Bride I drew looks very Marie Antoinette-ish.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

WRP 7: Russia

World Reading Project, Book #7

Russia
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy, 1878

UGH. This is the second time I've read Anna Karenina. The first time I was maybe 17 or 18? And I think I remember really loving it. I've liked Russian literature for a long time, probably inspired by my dad, whose favorite book is The Brothers Karamazov. And I reread it fully expecting to love it again. WRONG. I hated every male character, and probably hated Levin the most, and I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be the sympathetic one? In my personal notes of books I read I started with "REMIND ME NEVER TO READ THIS AGAIN!!!". Okay, so the things I hate about Levin were specifically how his love is so special and so above what everyone else feels. And it's such a misogynistic attitude because he places such little importance on women's work and the preparations that need to happen for home life.
"Just as Levin had disliked all the trivial preparations for his wedding, as derogatory to the grandeur of the event, now he felt still more offensive the preparations for the approaching birth, the date of which they reckoned, it seemed, on their fingers. He tried to turn a deaf ear to these discussions of the best patterns of long clothes for the coming baby; tried to turn away and avoid seeing the mysterious, endless strips of knitting, the triangles of linen, and so on, to which Dolly attached special importance. The birth of a son (he was certain it would be a son) which was promised him, but which he still could not believe in—so marvelous it seemed—presented itself to his mind, on one hand, as a happiness so immense, and therefore so incredible; on the other, as an event so mysterious, that this assumption of a definite knowledge of what would be, and consequent preparation for it, as for something ordinary that did happen to people, jarred on him as confusing and humiliating." 

And how dare someone allude to his love: 
"Darya Alexandrovna too, as she said good-bye to him, gave him a sort of congratulation, saying, “How glad I am you have met Kitty again! One must value old friends.” Levin did not like these words of Darya Alexandrovna’s. She could not understand how lofty and beyond her it all was, and she ought not to have dared to allude to it."

I also read a bit about Tolstoy's life while I was reading Anna Karenina, and boy that did not help at all. He was a horrible jerk to his wife, and a lot of the things I hate about Levin seem to be Tolstoy's own thoughts and attitudes. When I read, my emotions can really determine how I feel about a book, and increasingly if I learn things about an author that disgust me, it's hard for me to enjoy reading their work. It's not really a conscious decision and I'm surrounded by academics who decidedly do not read books this way, and can make me feel self-conscious about how I read books. But then frequently they're not really reading for pleasure anyway.

I kept reading because even though I grew to really really detest the characters,
Tolstoy's writing about inner life just amazes me. I think he's a master at writing the shifting nature of human emotions and thoughts, and especially of making plans and resolutions that are then forgotten, or waste away. "He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better than before. In the first place he resolved that from that day he would give up hoping for any extraordinary happiness, such as marriage must have given him, and consequently he would not so disdain what he really had. ...And all this seemed to him so easy a conquest over himself that he spent the whole drive in the pleasantest daydreams. With a resolute feeling of hope in a new, better life, he reached home before nine o’clock at night."

And this made me laugh: "There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent even—anything would have been better than what he did do—his face utterly involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)—utterly involuntarily assumed its habitual, good-humored, and therefore idiotic smile."

In relation to my mail hobby, I'll leave you with some lovely quotes about writing letters:

"Countess Lidia Ivanovna usually wrote some two or three letters a day to Alexey Alexandrovitch. She enjoyed that form of communication, which gave opportunity for a refinement and air of mystery not afforded by their personal interviews."

"Folding the letter and smoothing it with a massive ivory knife, and putting it in an envelope with the money, he rang the bell with the gratification it always afforded him to use the well arranged appointments of his writing-table."

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Outgoing Mail

I've been joining lots of Swap-bot swaps lately. This one was for a mail art envelope and flat surprise inside:


I've been sending out more postcards recently. Mostly to family and friends as a little hello/thinking of you message.


 I think this is to a penpal I found from sendsomething.net, another great place to find people who send mail!
 

I was really feeling the fall vibe. There's practically nothing I love more than woodland animals wearing clothes and being ridiculously cute. Look at that awesome sweater vest! This illustration is from a children's reading textbook.


Top envelope illustration from the same children's reading textbook, and bottom is from a water damaged book about Star Wars memorabilia.


 Also made some more Halloween mail! If there's anything I love more than cute animals in clothes, it's spooky weird Halloween shit and the great color scheme of black, orange, purple, lime green, dark blue.


Making use of some pages from a medical dictionary...

and again here:

Pink Halloween  :)


I've been meaning to take more photos of my incoming mail to share here as well, since that's definitely half the fun of penpal-ing! I succeeded in taking ONE photo of an incoming letter. Lol. I'll do better.


Thursday, September 12, 2019

WRP 6: Canada

World Reading Project, Book #6

Canada
Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq, 2018

Tanya Tagaq is an Inuk throat singer and author from Nunavut in Canada. This book has really stuck with me and I think about it frequently several months after reading it. I think she's an incredible writer. I've added several quotes at the end of this post because I can't pick a favorite.

Split Tooth
was another hard book to read because of the subject matter: sexual abuse & trauma. It was very empowering though. It's a mix of prose and poetry, and one phrase I keep thinking about from one of the poems was "I do not forgive and forget / I Protect and Prevent." There's some really crazy stuff happening which I read as an alternative to acknowledging the horror of what she's gone through. The Northern Lights impregnate the main character, and when she gives birth... damn, what a vision! One of the strangest scenes I've ever read.


"Lichen smells sweet. The green lichen smells different from black. In the spring you smell last fall’s death and this year’s growth, as the elder lichen shows the young how to grow.The freeze traps life and stops time. The thaw releases it. We can smell the footprints of last fall and the new decomposition of all who perished in the grips of winter. Global warming will release the deeper smells and coax stories out of the permafrost. Who knows what memories lie deep in the ice? Who knows what curses? Earth’s whispers released back into the atmosphere can only wreak havoc."

"The simple truth is we are simply an expression of the energy of the sun. We are the glorious manifestation of the power of the universe. We are the fingertips of the force that drives the stars, so do your job and FEEL."

"I realize that birds see in a completely different way than we humans do. We are slow and lumbering, our language is deep and muddy. Our confinement to the ground elicits pity. They look at us as we look upon the trees, slow but full of longevity. The trees look at the rocks that way. Rocks look at the mountains that way. Mountains look at the water that way. Earth looks at the sun that way. Everyone has an elder."

"A strange feeling washes over me, something predatory. I have caught the scent of fear. I can smell fear and it excites me. Bloodlust but more like Spiritlust. The fear talks to my teeth and wants them to grow large and pointed. The fear talks to my spine and tells it to be near to the earth, because you can hide your belly that way. The fear talks to my eyes and tells them to see food in the veins of necks."

"What keeps you alive in crisis can kill you once you are free."

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Missouri Mule Days

I was in Missouri for Labor Day weekend for a bridal shower, and while I was there I found out that Missouri Mule Days was happening!! My family had mules when I was growing up, and I've been to a mule show in Maryland several times, so I was really excited to go to this one. Unfortunately I missed my favorite event, which is the jumping. Mules jump from basically a stand-still, unlike horses who get a running start. And mules aren't ridden during their jumping competitions, they are led up to the jump. I highly recommend watching some videos on youtube! Here's a fun one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6O6u8P3QA0&t=29s

A sweet looking mule getting some attention:

The events I got to see were the youth showmanship classes, where the mules are led around doing different things, walk, trot, turns, back up, etc. The kids have pretty awesome blinged-out outfits as you can see below.



I also saw some of the driving events. This mule below is the same one as in the second photo above, and I thought it was so pretty. Its name was "Fifty Shades of Foxy" and they won one of the driving classes.


It was a real treat to get to see a bunch of mules again.

Thursday, September 5, 2019

WRP 5: Barbados

World Reading Project, Book #5

Barbados
Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord, 2010

The story is about Paama, an amazing cook who marries a man so gluttonous he's stealing and disgracing himself. The djombi have been observing Paama, and impressed with her, they give her the Chaos Stick, which has the power to manipulate probabilities, making unlikely things happen.

Oh my God, I loved this book. It's been one of my favorite books of the year.  I loved the spider trickster character, who was both creeeepy and funny. This book kept surprising me in the directions that it took. There's a lot of compassion in it and by the end of the book my opinions about the "villains" were transformed. I also enjoyed the story telling voice of the narrator, who frequently gives opinions or breaks into the story in other ways. I got this out from the library, but if I ever see it in a bookstore, I'll definitely purchase it.

This is one quote that made me laugh out loud: 
"I know your complaint already. You are saying, how do two grown men begin to see talking spiders after only three glasses of spice spirit? My answer to that is twofold. First, you have no idea how strong spice spirit is made in that region. Second, you have no idea how talking animals operate. Do you think they would have survived long if they regularly made themselves known? For that matter, do you think an arachnid with mouthparts is capable of articulating the phrase ‘I am a pawnbroker’ in any known human language? Think! These creatures do not truly talk, nor are they truly animals, but they do encounter human folk, and when they do, they carefully take with them all memory of the meeting."

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Halloween mail already!

Well, I've already started with the Halloween mail. There were several Halloween swaps on swapbot starting in late August and I couldn't resist! I've already seen a house in my town decorated for Halloween as well.

I love the Curious George sticker I put on this.


Homemade (but barely by me) Halloween cards. I actually received these awesome library card decorations last year in a swap so I decided to put them on cards for this swap. They are so pretty! I added the fuzzy bat, but that's all.

Homemade Halloween postcard, plus two bookish postcards for another swap:


I can't wait to buy the new Halloween stamps the USPS has coming out! I still love the jack-o-lanterns from last year, but I only have a few left.