Short Takes
December 6, 2012
Artisans: A Crafty Bunch
Some of you are handy, and not just around the house. At the holidays — and beyond — two Butler readers are very crafty indeed.
Bookish: Amanda Tobier buys old books in libraries and thrift shops, then transforms them. “I make art from art,” she says. You can see her work on Tumblr and on Etsy.
Knit hats, scarves, gloves: “I knit, therefore I am,” Lucy says, and given the range and quality of her offerings, she is knitting and being all the time. Hat and glove orders are usually filled within 48 hours. Find her here.
November 21, 2012
I used to be indifferent to Fiona Apple. Then I read this.
Fiona Apple’s dog is dying, so she canceled her tour. And wrote a letter to her fans explaining why. Here’s part of her letter. But the whole thing is worth reading.
I can’t come to South America. Not now.
When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference. She doesn’t even want to go for walks anymore.
I know that she’s not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That’s why they are so much more present than people.
But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She’ll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.
I just can’t leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I’m afraid she’ll die and I won’t have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.
Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.
But this decision is instant.
These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.
November 3, 2012
Feel like playing “You make the call?”
Here are the concluding paragraphs of two reviews of Tom Wolfe’s new novel. One is from his hometown Bible, the New York Times. The other is from the Financial Times, based in London. Which is which? And which one would you tend to believe?
“Back to Blood is as fraudulent as the forged paintings at the center of its plot, falling victim to the social diseases it pretends to diagnose: gigantism, self-indulgence, superficiality masking as profundity, a hyperactive, hyperbolic acquisitiveness and an endless taste for the crudely obvious….When a character is dumbfounded, Wolfe informs us that this observation was ‘very much including the word’s literal meaning: speechless.’ All I can say is that Back to Blood also left me dumbfounded, very much including the word’s literal meaning.”
“Wolfe’s work, always more occupied with the social than the self, springs from the same premise. He believes that the forest makes the trees, not the other way around, and that’s why he will be remembered as a formidable replicator of times and places rather than a great creator of characters…. Tom Wolfe’s achievement, however incomplete, remains buoyant and considerable…..”
November 2, 2012
‘Keep Calm and Carry On’
A charming bit of history, British and literary. (Thanks, LMS)