Pooh

Image courtesy logoi.com

This Friday, "Winnie the Pooh" is back on the big screen. There is something sweet and lovely always about that 'silly old bear'. I do appreciate Disney's adaptation of the Milne stories (especially the fact they are respectful of the pacing and tender whimsy of the literary version), but I am a fanatic admirer of the E.H. Shepard illustrations.

The Shepard line drawings capture childhood imaginings and all of their gentle silliness, kindness and wonder. They are truly classic and, in my opinion, among the very best in children's book art.

Image courtesy of fortunecity
 

Image courtesy of BibliOdyssey

Image courtesy of BibliOdyssey

Image courtesy of childillustration.blogspot.com

 The following illustration is my favorite:

" He nodded and went out ...and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh
– bump, bump, bump – going up the stairs behind him."

"This original illustration is reproduced on page 159 of Winnie-the-Pooh and comprises a full-page illustration in the published volume. It represents one of the iconic images of Winnie-the-Pooh and comes from the final chapter in which Christopher Robin gives a Pooh party, and we say good-bye. " 

Image courtesy of BibliOdyssey

listography

Image courtesy of chroniclebooks

list: a series of items written together in a meaningful grouping.
-ography: a writing about or a representation of a thing.

Chronicle Books publishes this super cool series of listography books designed by Lisa Nola and Nathaniel Russell. They describe a listography as "a perpetual work in progress, a time capsule, and a map of your life".

The books provide the starting points for a collection of lists that come together to form an autobiography of sorts. There is not only the original listography, but volumes for specific topics such as-music, friends, my future, and kids' listography.

Each page in these funky journals prompts you with a subject/question/directions and leaves space for you to list your ideas and responses. The concept is simple and the format equally uncomplicated, but once it is all filled out- what an extraordinary way to record the details of life.

Images courtesy of listography.com

"Willie C.! Take care, man. Stay cool. Stay cool forever."

Every few months I come across the movie Beautiful Girls on television and I always watch it. It came out in 1996 and I don't remember ever hearing about it, but since then, during my absurd number of viewings, it has become one of my favorite comfort films. One of those movies I can watch over and over and I always enjoy it.

I will confess right now that a big reason for this is that the film takes place in a small New England town in winter and it is spot on. I love that everything takes place against a backdrop of near constant flurries and cold and the even the piles of old dirty snow that line the streets in certain shots make it feel like home to me.

The movie is about a group of high school buddies reconnecting for a reunion. It is a homecoming for one particular character, Willie, who now lives in New York City and makes his living as a jazz pianist in a bar. He returns home to Knight's Ridge where the rest of this group of close friends live and work...begrudgingly facing adulthood. He, too, battles with relationship and career decisions and the broader struggle of simply growing up.

Timothy Hutton is fantastic as Willie, but this film is really the definition of an ensemble. Matt Dillon, Michael Rappaport, Uma Thurman, and a young Natalie Portman round out a cast of endearingly flawed, funny, and real characters.

There are painful portraits of regret tempered with just the right amount of humor. It is like visiting with that group of good time guys from high school and seeing how it all played out- good and bad. It is nostalgic, immediate, and emotional- all that and worth the watch....every time.

Saul Leiter

Image courtesy of observatory.designobserver.com

I have been watching, or more like engrossed in, the "Mildred Pierce" mini-series on HBO. Even before the first parts aired, I watched "Making of Mildred Pierce", which was honestly nearly as interesting as the series itself , and it was the first time I had heard mention of the photographer/painter Saul Leiter.

Director Todd Haynes credits Production Designer Mark Friedberg with introducing him to the work of Leiter. According to Haynes, the photographer's use of reflection, use of windows or glass, seemed give a truer sense of being in a specific place at a specific time and that was the perfect feel for this period piece.

In a 2005 NYTimes review by Roberta Smith, she writes:

"Unlike such well-known street photographers as Robert Frank and William Klein, Mr. Leiter was a photographer less of people than of perception itself. His painter's instincts served him well in his emphasis on surface, spatial ambiguity and a lush, carefully calibrated palette. But the abstract allure of his work doesn't rely on soft focus, a persistent, often irritating photographic ploy, or the stark isolation of details, in the manner of Aaron Siskind or early Harry Callahan. Instead, Mr. Leiter captured the passing illusions of everyday life with a precision that might almost seem scientific, if it weren't so poetically resonant and visually layered."

I love that last part- poetically resonant and visually layered....When I did ultimately look up Leiter's work, I was moved and I could also see just how much his photographs informed Haynes and inspired his film making.

So if you have the opportunity, try to catch "Mildred Pierce" and if you don't- take in some of Leiter's work...

Image courtesy of vananodyne.blogspot.com

  Image courtesy of jacksonfineart.com
  Image courtesy of jacksonfineart.com
  Image courtesy of red-tshirt-blog.blogspot.com
 

Image courtesy of jacksonfineart.com 

 

Image courtesy of jacksonfineart.com

''I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?''

Image courtesy of charlottekeiko.tumblr.com

I read in Entertainment Weekly that on March 22nd a 25th Anniversary Edition of the movie Stand By Me was released. This film, based on a Stephen King novella, not only seems to perfectly capture the feel and look of the 1950s- it has some pretty incredible performances by the four adolescent boys featured in the story of some friends traveling (by means of following the railroad tracks) to an adjoining town to see the rumored dead body found there by some older teens.

This is definitely one of those movies I can watch again and again and every time it ends in tears. Just as the reviewer Chris Nashawaty writes... "We've all been held hostage by coming-of-age stories that shamelessly cudgel us into sniffling submission. And while they might succeed in making us reach for the Kleenex, we rarely feel good about it afterward. Then there's a movie like Stand by Me (1986, R, 1 hr., 28 mins.), which gets your tear ducts working honestly."

If you are looking for a good cry....search no further.

desperately seeking

I do not know about you, but I have a list of certain things I am always looking for online. Once in awhile I will find one of them, only to lose it in a bidding war or because I spotted it too late. It is so disappointing and now I can not imagine ever actually getting my hands on one of the things from my list. I suppose everyone has a list like this or maybe I believe that because then I can seem less obsessive.

In any case, I am sharing the three things I am constantly hunting for -so if you spot one out there -drop me a line! The first is the Secret Garden CD single from Bruce Springsteen circa 1995. I covet this particular disc because the "b-side" is the most incredible live version of Thunder Road I have ever heard and because I had this cassette and promptly wore it out on my long drives back and forth to college my junior and senior years.

The second item is the book Pippa Mouse: Six Read Aloud/ Read Along Stories, 1973 by Betty Boegehold. This was my very favorite book in second grade. I think I checked it out of the library half a dozen consecutive times before my mum gently persuaded me to give another book a try. Oh, how I loved this book though- multiple stories, perfectly penciled illustrations, and a sweet mouse protagonist.

I can't believe how difficult it is to track this down ( for less than 50 dollars and in truly "good" condition), but I probably scour the Internet twice a month with my fingers crossed anyhow!

The last item is an issue of the now defunct, but always awesome, Sassy magazine from January 1990. I always thought this would be a killer gift for Vivi - we were crazy about Sassy and this particular issue is her birthday month and from the time we were most dedicated to the teen periodical. How cool would it be to find it some 21 years later?

This may be the item I would like to get my hands on the most.

So there you have it- my quest for Bruce, Pippa, and Sassy continues.....I'll keep you posted :).

Image 1 courtesy of springsteenlyrics.com ; Image 2 courtesy of amazon; Image 3 courtesy of magazines2go

little house shadowbox

via apartment therapy

My mother has one of these house-shaped shadowboxes hanging in her home that my sister and I proceeded to fill, for the entirety of our childhood, with these little animal figurines that we were obsessed with at Hallmark. We gave her the tiny creatures in the name of her birthday or Mother's Day or Christmas, but - of course - we just loved them and loved deciding which animal deserved to "live" in specific rooms of the wooden house. My mother still has this shadowbox, with its carefully selected inhabitants, hanging up in her home and even though it's totally a little too cutesy - I kinda want one. Both for the sake of nostalgia and the fun of decorating one - I'm keeping an eye out the next time I hit the flea market. I just hope the husband can handle all the tiny glass kittens I'll probably end up filling the darn thing with..

{top, left to right: via I heart linen and via DayDream Lily

bottom, left to right: via Ask Alice and danieru_.}

Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas

There are so many holiday specials out there. I can definitely take or leave most of them , but my very favorite is actually kind of hard to find in most line-ups. Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas is based on a Russell Hoban/Lillian Hoban (of "Frances the Badger" fame) story and has all the sweet natured charm and humor of the classic Muppets.
Jim Henson developed this " 'Gift of the Magi' with a twist" tale of Emmet Otter and his Ma and it should be a staple of the season. With all of the junky holiday television programming out there these days, it is just nice to see a production with some Christmas spirit....the furry Mupppets are a bonus!

Christmas is approaching in Frogtown Hollow, and Emmet Otter and his Ma hope to buy gifts for each other. Unfortunately, Emmet doesn't make enough from the odd jobs he does, and Ma doesn't make enough as a laundress. They decide to compete in the Frog Town Hollow Talent Contest in order to win money, but Ma will have to hock Emmet's tool chest to buy a costume, and Emmet will have to put a hole in Ma's washtub for his band!

Image courtesy of Google

A very country Christmas

via pure country music

My mother, a seemingly very classic Northeasterner and city-dweller in both taste and style, has a major soft spot for country Christmas songs. I don't know how it fits into her love of Babs, opera, or weird European experimental music from the 60s, but there you have it.

Of course, whether genetically handed down or because my spirit was broken by its constant presence during my formative years, I too cannot get enough of Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers right now. As a kid growing up in New York, I loved all things related to the frontier life. I reread Laura Ingalls Wilder without pause, planned my Sunday afternoons around the two hour block of "Little House on the Prairie" and "Grizzly Adams," and, every December, made sure I did not miss "Christmas Comes to Willow Creek" (it stars Bo and Luke Duke, for pete's sake!) or Dolly Parton's "A Smokey Mountain Christmas."

And though I've always loved a country Christmas, now that I've married a Southern man - I've gone full tilt country. I'm openly listening to Dolly's "Hard Candy Christmas" on repeat (seriously, it's awesome and not only because it was sung in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas") and tracking Kenny's Christmas Tour even though, that Southerner of a husband of mine may now be at his country Christmas breaking point...

getmortified

There really is a site for just about every subject out there and that means there are fantastic places like getmortified.com . Getmortified.com is essentially a home for angst and awkwardness - it calls itself a "comic excavation of the strange and extraordinary things we created as kids". Adults share everything from their childhood journals and letters to the movies and photographs of their youth. (My personal favorite- reasons they deserve to marry Jon Bon Jovi)

The site also features the publications to come out of these often hilarious walks down memory lane and the live performances folks will give recounting their own mortification for an audience. I would love to catch one of these shows I don't doubt they are funny, but I also bet it feels so liberating for the participants. Imagine being brave enough to share your own special brand of teenage craziness in front of all those people?

{Image courtesy of getmortified.com}

Aline Smithson's "In Case of Rain"

I keep going back to Aline Smithson's photo series, "In Case of Rain" (discovered on kris atomic) with its beauty and brightness on this rainy and gloomy day. Hope you fall in love with it too....

"We live in a world of technical distractions. I see my children gathered around their computers as though it's a summer campfire, faces aglow, as they peer into a world of friends and fantasy, participating in a new form of entertainment that further remove them from the childhood that I experienced.

Today's generation has lost touch with the activities that previous generations have enjoyed—reading a good book in a comfortable chair, playing board games on a rainy day, flipping through Life magazines, or sprawling out on the living room rug while listening to records and reading the backs of album covers.

And it's because of this that I have been looking at book shelves and untouched childhood pursuits with a new eye. With great sadness, I realize that these objects will someday be obsolete, at least in their current incarnations. And like a curator of antiques, I see them now as beautiful objects to be admired and preserved, if only on film.

I can only hope for rain, a heavy rain and maybe a power outage."

— Aline Smithson on her photo series, "In Case of Rain"

Rickeys

It is getting warmer and before long it will be raspberry lime rickey weather -I can't wait! It is a New England staple of sorts and although there are numerous variations, including those with alcohol, I love the ones that harken back to the days of drugstore soda fountains. That was before my time, but I remember my mum would order a rickey when we went for ice cream at the local Brigham's. Even though I could barely understand the complete craziness of passing up a giant sugar cone of chocolate chip for just a drink, I was intrigued. They seemed "grown-up", so when I was about 9-years-old I asked if I could have one too. I have never regretted it- now it is the refreshing, comforting, taste of childhood summers that I am so looking forward to on our next trip for ice cream....in addition to those sugar cones full of chocolate chip of course. Raspberry Lime Rickey

Ingredients

• 1 lime, quartered
• 8 fluid ounces carbonated water
• 1 (1.5 fluid ounce) jigger raspberry syrup

Instructions
1. Fill a tall glass with ice. Squeeze each of the lime wedges into glass, and drop in. Fill glass nearly to the top with carbonated water, and top with raspberry syrup.

Images courtesy of google.com

year in a bottle

I have this bottle of perfume I keep on my dresser, but I never wear it. I actually got it just to smell it. My sister smelled it once and said it smelled like the 80s. It is funny how a scent can be so significant to one person and be something totally different (or even nothing at all) to another. 

The smell of dewberry reminds me of Friday night movies at the mall.

The overwhelming scent of dishwasher detergent is every restaurant job I ever had. 

Drakkar Noir is the hallways of high school.

Orange tea is graduate school seminars.

The original Febreeze is being in Paris (I know, so weird).

I saw this perfume I mentioned in a Marshall's and the bottle was immediately familiar to me even though I had not seen it in more than a decade. When I went to college, states away from life as I knew it, I had a number of things to adjust to- the first being my roommate. 

She was a bona fide Houston debutante, hitting the campus with a purse for every outfit, the finest bed linens to ever see the inside of a dorm and an astounding array of beauty products- the perfume was one of them.

It turned out that she was the perfect roommate for me and one of the best people I met in college. I started borrowing that perfume in the fall and wearing it off and on throughout that first year on my own. 

It is independence and fear.

It is first love and real heartache.

It is being homesick and feeling empowered.

It is 18....right there in a bottle. 

{Image courtesy of deviantart}

Nostalgia....Don Draper style

Image courtesy of AMC.com

I am missing Mad Men. The other day I was thinking about the scene from the finale of first season where Don is doing his presentation to the folks from Kodak about his take on their new product- the Carousel slide projector.....it is the series at its finest.

Don Draper: Well, technology is a glittering lure. But, uh, there is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product.
My first job, I was in-house at a fur company, with this old-pro copywriter, a Greek named Teddy. Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is new. Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.
But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product. Nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent. (lights switch off-slideshow with Don Draper's family begins)
Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound”.
It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.
This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine.
It goes backwards, forwards,takes us to a place where we ache to go again.
It’s not called the wheel. It’s called the carousel.
It let's us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.

To truly appreciate the presentation you probably have to know the character, but it is pretty powerful either way. The following is a link to the scene- see for yourself.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bLNkCqpuY&feature=fvsr

New Year's Eve

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. " - Harry Burns, When Harry Met Sally

A decade ago I spent New Year's Eve with Vivi- neither of us fans of the hoopla and both of us apart from our respective terrible boyfriends. We had plans to go to a party and then we didn't have them, so we spent the night walking in the freezing cold of Boston looking for a perfect spot to ring in the new century. It is a long story that ends with us eating pea soup and rice pudding, grabbing the first cab we could at 12:01 to get out of the single digit frigidity and getting back to my apartment for some When Harry Met Sally.

I love that movie and the quote I posted above. What I love most about that New Year's Eve however, is that I finished the century with the person who was with me through all the best and worst times of our adolescence, the person I laughed and cried with the most, the person who inspired and comforted me. I am always grateful for that (and that the aforementioned terrible boyfriends are not the lovely gents we call ours today). 

Happy 2010!

Image courtesy of leavemethewhite.com

a confession

via weheartit

Are you ready to be shocked? Brace yourselves, faithful readers.

Alright, here it is... I adore Taylor Swift.

Now, I know that this news totally blows your mind because you think of me as so incredibly edgy with my many posts on poetry and cats, but you are just going to have to believe it.

This confession is also major because I don't want it to reflect upon and embarrass the two dear friends that I share this blog with and who are both the epitome of hip (what with Mae's concern about archiving her children's school work for the long hall and Lorelei's near mania for children's libraries - there is a real chance that these ladies are going to cut me loose!).

via weheartit

Alas, I kid. Those two are as dorky as I am (thus my love for them), but loving Taylor Swift is still a goofy thing to admit to since I am not 15 (I'm more like two 15 year olds and a first grader).

Other celebrities her age annoy me to no end (cough, Miley) so I'm as surprised as anyone as to how much I enjoy Ms Taylor. Sure, she has cute style and is up for anything (check her out on SNL), but I think the heart of her appeal is that there is a real sincerity to her songs about young love.

Her songs are, yes, simple and sweet, but in that way they are also able to capture an earnestness and vulnerability that reminds me how it felt to be in high school when every emotion was so new, so heightened, so raw - even when you were happy.

via weheartit

Anyway, I sent the acoustic version of Taylor Swift's Fifteen to my friend Ruby who, because she is such a beautiful writer, knew exactly how to express how this teenager singer taps into a thirtysomething's nostalgia:

"It makes me remember the first time I ever held hands with a boy. It makes me remember the first time I ever got caught kissing a boy. Joe Silvio. Italian hunkahunka, football player, Catholic, older brother to a new born baby sister. It makes me remember the poem I wrote in high school about all those people there. I memorized a bit of it...In a place of jagged edges, may our circle of light shine through. In a place where there are no benches, tell me where to sit, to read, to believe what I say I believe. It reminds me of my dramatic nature, my mother's dramatic nature:-), a smug teenage self rolling my eyes. I'm with you, friend. That kinda shit does all sorts of things to you. It's really nice to be all ages at once, as Madeleine L'Engle says we are."

Doesn't Ruby just nail it? Taylor Swift's songs totally speak to the inner geeky teenage girl and it is nice, every now and again, to feed her needs too.

P.S. Oh, and I am so outing Lorelei... she loves herself some Taylor too. So does her 1 1/2 year old daughter who is obviously already laying the groundwork for her future teenage soul...

Passing Notes

Image courtesy of kimwerker.com

I have seen more than a few bloggers lament the lost art of note folding and passing. I have to admit to my own boxes of both intricately folded/crafted notes and hastily, passionately scribbled out messages from all four years of high school. Every now and then I take them out and (in a cleaning frenzy) consider parting with the pile. But, I always wind up reading them, laughing, crying, and, in the end, tucking them away for another time. I can never throw out those boxes, the crazy combination of silly gossip, hysterical storytelling, endless venting, and proclamations of love....not just yet.

Recently, I started considering how high schoolers now won't have this time capsule of notebook paper to mark their adolescence. Not that their feelings or dramas aren't out there- with social media networks, blogs, and texting there are more than enough venues, but how much is ever put on paper? I wonder if they even know what their best friend's or boyfriend's/girlfriend's handwriting looks like? I could identify who sent me a note just from they way they wrote my name on the thick triangle of folded paper stuffed in my locker grate.

My best friend's handwriting had a funky backward slant and her lettering was as skinny as she was- but to be fair, she often put "You" on the outside of a note. The notes that came from her were in the coded language we used to keep both our private thoughts and snarky comments from falling into the wrong hands. I'm fairly sure if there were Inspector Gadget self destructing messages available to us we would have used them, but lucky for me-I can still read and even understand every word of these notes twenty years later. Lucky for me, I can torment her with them...

Among the countless notes from her, from bored lab partners, from heartsick friends, from ticked off frenemies, are my very first love notes. Even with the misspellings and the small talk of a 15 year old boy (that includes stories of who passed gas in math class and ruminations about the best Pink Floyd album) they still hold some of the sweetest, most genuine things I have ever had written to me. I still feel flush when I read them and all the years and broken hearts since then can't take away from that. I love that.

In my search to find some photographs of old school folded notes, I came across some very funny "analysis" one blogger posted of his high school notes to his then girlfriend/now wife. He not only dissects one of his own, but one of hers as well - nostalgic humor at its best. http://www.pharaohweb.com/blog/2008/04/18/1754/

forts and tents and childhood

I saw "Where the Wild Things Are" yesterday and loved it to pieces. It was so beautiful and wistful and sad. It really captured the essence of the book, the mood - which is something much more difficult to grasp than mere plot points. Not a movie for children, per se, but definitely a movie about childhood.

One of the things that it brought back for me was my long lost love of forts and tents. My sister and I used to make pretty elaborate ones in our bedroom on the weekends and we loved sleeping in it (it'd always have to be done before "Golden Girls" started on Saturday night. Apparently, the experience of sitting in a fort made out of your bed blankets and sheets is only made better by the banter of the elderly).

But isn't there something so magical about sleeping in your own homemade (or bedroom-made) fort? The coziness of it. The way the light comes through. How secret and safe it feels to be inside, but yet it is so vulnerable (the structure itself, yes, but also the you inside of it). As an adult, I think there is also something so incredibly romantic about it too. There are scenes in movies like "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" that really capture that romantic aspect as well as the security and desire to have an even more inside space (more private, more yours) than the inside your own home or your own room. Anyway, here are some of my favorite images of homemade tents and forts...

image via home sweet home

image via nine kinds of crazy

image via somerset

image via somerset

image via Fifikoussout

And, yes, it is a "real" tent and not homemade, but Richie Tenenbaum's tent was still perfect:

image via ready to die

image(s) via be my cupcake

Remember that scene under the covers in ""Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"? It totally counts as a fort moment:

images via this michel gondry fan site (dialogue via imbd)

Clementine: Joely?

Joel: Yeah Tangerine?

Clementine: Am I ugly?

Joel: Uh-uh.

Clementine: When I was a kid, I thought I was. I can't believe I'm crying already. Sometimes I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't matter. So, I'm eight, and I have these toys, these dolls. My favorite is this ugly girl doll who I call Clementine, and I keep yelling at her, "You can't be ugly! Be pretty!" It's weird, like if I can transform her, I would magically change, too.

Joel: [kisses Clementine] You're pretty.

Clementine: Joely, don't ever leave me.

Joel: You're pretty... you're pretty... pretty...

P.S. In my search for fort images, I discovered the Wild Things Forts' Contest! I think it's over, but I hope they put up some more images soon.