Here are some shiny things that caught my eye recently:
♦ My friend Eljay Daly sent me the link to this article on Wim Botha’s Beautifully Grotesque Book Masterpieces—and they are!
♦ A new blog about “fairy tale, mythic, and otherwise enchanted decorating” has arrived: Domythic Bliss, which looks like it will be a fun and inspirational site to visit, if you’re into that kind of decorating. Outside of “Cabinet of Curiosities,” I’m not sure yet how I would describe my own decorating style, but I like the idea of a room telling a story (something Grace addresses in the blog’s first post), so I’ll be following.
I follow Grace’s other two blogs, Catty-Corner Cottage (about the process of decorating her own house) and The Beautiful Necessity (about the Pre-Raphaelites), both of which I enjoy quite a bit.
♦ Katherine Langrish writes about The Value of Mythical Thinking, as well as hosting a guest post from Susan Price about the worldwide web of fairy tales.
♦ For Will Ludwigsen: Simone Preuss explored the remains of Spain’s creepy abandoned doll factory at Environmental Graffiti. Delightfully disturbing.
Via.
♦ Writers, Inkpunks has put together a list of Writing Workshops for Everyone you might find of use.
Also for writers: via Elizabeth Hand on Facebook I found this Guardian UK article on Twitter: The Virtual Literary Salon. As interesting as I found that article, I’m afraid I’m still not interested in tweeting. (Sorry, Amanda!)
I am, however, interested in style, so how could I not link to Chuck Wendig’s 25 Things Writers Should Know about Finding Their Voice?
Speaking of style, Pico Iyer discusses the point of the long and winding sentence, which I myself often employ. I found the article through a post at Theodora Goss’s blog, who also gives a thoughtful response to Iyer there.
Via Tor.com, I learned two things last week: (1) a reading and writing website community called figment exists, and (2) figment just started a new series of daily writing prompts from famous writers. The Daily Themes are delivered to your email inbox, so you do have to sign-up, but these prompts may be just the nudge you need, eh?
♦ Dancers Among Us, an on-going photography project by Jordan Matter, just added Alex Wong to the mix. Amazing stuff (and Workman Publishing will release a book of Matter’s Dancers Among Us photographs next year—woo hoo!). Maybe this is how I should start taking out the trash?
♦ I can’t tell anything about the upcoming Norwegian movie Thale from this preview, but any flick that focuses on the huldra, a creature from Scandinavian folklore that has a cow’s tail and a hollow back (or a back made from bark), has my interest. The film shows up in Norwegian theaters on February 17th.
With the success of Troll-Hunter last year, a lot of buzz suggests that Norwegian horror seems to be on the rise. Cameron, what do you think?
Via.
♦ Almost everyone I know posted last week about The Joy of Books video, either on Facebook or their blogs, but here it is anyway, for your late enjoyment.
♦ Here’s a video you might not have seen but really ought to: the music video for “Two Against One” by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi, featuring Jack White and Norah Jones (from the album Rome). Very, very cool.
Via.
