Literary Body Art

For the millionth time, I love reading. I love books. I love words. The other day I happened to stumble across (literally, i was using stumble upon) a tattoo that quoted my favorite ee cummings poem. I thought it was beautiful and it got me started looking around for litarary tattoos. Below are some of my favorites.

I'm not really one to have tattoos all over, but I do think these are beautiful and fun and speak loudly. All of them are from books or poems that I love and have read and reread.

A quote (paraphrase from the 11th book of The Illiad.

A picture of Harriet, from the book Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. I loved this book so much..I used to play "town" and carry around a notebook just like Harriet.

EE Cumming's entire poem, I Carry Your Heart In My Heart.

The drawing from Shel Silverstein's poem Invitation.

“If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!”

Harry Potter- A quote from Dumbledore to Harry in The Sorcerer's Stone about a mirror who shows whomever looks into it their greatest desire.

Emily Dickenson's poem Not In Vain.

"IF I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again,

I Shall not live in vain."

Max, from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

From The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Sam tapped her hand on the steering wheel. Patrick held his hand outside the car and made air waves. And I just sat between them. After the song finished, I said something.

“I feel infinite.”

And Sam and Patrick looked at me like I said the greatest thing they ever heard. Because the song was that great and because we all really paid attention to it. Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spend, and we felt young in a good way.

From Emily Dickenson's poem Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches on the soul,
And sings the tune- without the words,
And never stops-at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me."

Charles Bukowski, For Jane

225 days under grass
and you know more than I.
they have long taken your blood,
you are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?
in this room
the hours of love
still make shadows.

when you left
you took almost
everything.
I kneel in the nights
before tigers
that will not let me be.

what you were
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.

Excerpt From Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's

“But you can’t give your heart to a wild thing; the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That’s how you’ll end up if you love a wild thing. You’ll end up looking at the sky. But believe me- it’s better to look at the sky than to live there. Such an empty place; so vague. just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear…”

Molly Bloom's soliloquy from Ulysses by James Joyce.

“…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Harry Potter "Mischief Managed" tattoo.

from The Lorax by Shel Silverstein

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. "


What do you think about tattoos? Do you have any?

Sweet nostalgia

Okay, school just restarted for me and with that and work I have been so swamped this week. Im so sorry for the lack of posts, but I am working out a system...regular blogging will pick up again very shortly. Please, please, please keep checking back..I dont want to lose any of you wonderful readers and your fab comments!

As I've said before, I'm a big reader. I loved reading when I was young too. I was recently going through some boxes and found a box of books from my childhood book shelf. I have to admit, I got a little misty ya'll...

Looking at those books brought back some of my first memories..of being read to by my parents, reading to my younger siblings while laying in our bunk beds, of books that I read over and over. I've already posted about Eloise, so here are some others.

I'm sure some of you have connections to a few of these books as well. If not, I would love to hear about your favorite childhood books!

The Giving Tree- Shel Silverstein

"Once there was a tree
and she loved a little boy.

And the boy loved the tree
very much.
And the tree was happy."

This book teaches a lesson about selfishness and also about unconditional love. It is sad, but it is honest and true. It is sad in the same way that life is sad yet there is still joy in this story

.

Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

I loved reading about Mr. & Mrs. Mallard and their children and I really loved the drawings.

Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always
As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.”

My mom used to read this to us and I loved this book.

When I got older I realized it got a little weird and creepy when the drives over to her adult son's house to sneak into his room (through the window, note the latter on the car!) to hold him and sing to him like she did when he was a baby. But..because of the overall sweet message of this book, and the memories, I'm willing to over look that creepy-overbearing thing.

The BFG by Roald Dahl

"The matter with human beans
is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything
unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles."

I was a big Roald Dahl fan and read all of his kids books. This one was one of my favorites. I so badly wanted to believe that there was a BFG who would blow good dreams into my ear at night and take away all the bad ones. Actually, I still want to believe that.

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally worth reading at the age of fifty.”
-CS Lewis

Book Post: The Time Traveler's Wife

I'm sorry for my infrequent posting and absence in the blogging world lately, I've been really busy..as soon as i get some time, I will check out all of the posts I have missed!

Okay people, this is one of my FAVORITE books of all time! I have read it no less than 5 times and listened to in on my ipod a couple of times too. If you like audiobooks, this is another great one.


The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger



Henry DeTamble is a librarian who suffers from a genetic disorder that causes him to shift backward and forward through time. Without a moment's notice, he disappears, leaving behind his clothes and everything else, and arrives naked at another time in his life. Sometimes he even meets a different version of himself.

In present time, when he is 28 years old he meets art student Clare Abshire, who is 20. This is his first time meeting her, but she has known him since she was 6 years old. He discovers that he has been appearing in Clare Abshire's life since she was a young girl. He does not begin to travel back to when Clare was young until after he had met Clair in present time and fallen in love with her as his time travel pulls him to people and moments of importance.
Clare, however, has loved Henry her entire life.

Henry's time travel means arriving naked and vomiting at some other moment of his life, always vulnerable and sometimes in danger. For Clare, loving a time traveler means long days and years of waiting for him to reappear, and never knowing at what age or in what shape he will arrive.

Although Henry is the time traveler, the novel is ultimately Clare’s story, a story of great joy, and pain.

Told through an interweaving of Henry’s and Clare’s distinctive voices, this novel is about love, and about fate, about the way two people are meant to be together, and how they are torn apart.

This has just been made into a movie starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. I am always super wary of any of my loved books in movie form...but at least they picked Rachel McAdams, she is one of my favorite actresses and I think she will play Clair well. The movie will not be as good as the book, it never is. It will not be able to express everything the book does.

So go see the movie..but please,please,please read the book. I really think you will be glad you did.

Ooooooo I absolutely love The Plaza!

"I am Eloise.
I am six.
I am a city child.
I live at The Plaza."

With those opening lines, I fell in love with Eloise. If you dont know this little girl, you need to. Kay Thompson was said to have created her as a mix of herself as a child and of Liza Minnelli (Kay's goddaughter) who was often left at The Plaza while her mother was away.


I wanted to be Eloise. I loved her. I loved her for wearing Kleenex boxes as hats and toe shoes on her ears to lunch.

I loved that she had her run of The Plaza and that her mother knew the owner. I liked her imagination and I liked that she was bad, bad, bad! I liked that she slithered, slomped and sklonked her away around. She was mischievous, cute, and, at the age of 6- an international traveller.

"Sometimes I throw a temper fit...but not very often."

I really loved Nanny. I got the habit of repeating things 3 times from reading Nanny so much.

"Nanny is my nurse. She wears tissue paper in her dress and you can hear it. She is English and has 8 hairpins made out of bones.

She says that's all she needs in this life for Lord's sake."

"Nanny says she would rawther I didn't talk talk talk all the time.

She always says everything 3 times like Eloise you cawn't cawn't cawn't. Sometimes I hit her on the ankle with a tassel. She is my mostly companion. "

Some of my most used sayings come from Eloise. I got a lot out of these books growing up.
It is just recently that I'm appreciating a whole new thing about the series...the fashion! Oh my Lord. This little girl had a specially made Dior dress! And, her mother knows Coco Chanel!

And he really did work with the illustrator and design an Eloise dress! It is in the picture below on the right. The left is Eloise's spy outfit from her trip to Moscow, of course!
We "always travel incognito" ;)




Some more beautiful Art (by Illustrator Hilary Knight, who, btw, now works at Vanity Fair) showing Nanny and Eloise at some fabulous stores in Eloise in Paris :

Cartier.

Hermes.

"Oh my Lord
There's so much to do
Tomorrow I think I'll pour a pitcher of water down the mail chute.

...Ooooooo I absolutely love The Plaza!"

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Book Post: Love Is a Mix Tape

I realize that I have been doing a lot of fashion centered posts, and that is not all that I want to share. I have decided to start posting my recommendations for reading. I am an avid reader, and I fall in love with books. When I really love a book, I can't wait to share it. I am going to post a new recommendation every now and then with a little of info on each book and some good quotes so that you will be able to get a feel for the story and the writing style.

So, for my first book post...

Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time
by Rob Sheffield.
*this story is non-fiction. It is a memoir, and one of the most original I have ever read.*

Music critic Rob Sheffield's memoir uses 22 mix tapes, one at the beginning of each chapter, to tell the story of his wife, Renee, "a real cool hell-raising Appalachian punk-rock girl", from the time they met in 1989 to her sudden death in 1997.

Love is a mix tape, a collection of moments. Rob uses a song on a mix tape (maybe one they made for making out, or doing the dishes, or sleeping) to tell his story of meeting, loving and losing Renee. His writing is honest and I love that he uses everyday language that makes you feel like he is talking directly to you.

You will laugh as he tells about how he fell hard, and awkwardly, for his punk rock Appalachian girl. You will cry when he writes so frankly about the emotions following the death of a loved one, and as he begins his journey to continue without her.

I also listened to it on Audio book while driving on a long trip.
If you like audio books at all, this is a WONDERFUL one to buy. Rob Sheffield narrates it himself and you can totally hear his geeky-ness, passion and pain in his voice. This is a wonderful, honest love story. And, it's set where i grew up! I'm just a real cool hell-raising Appalachia girl too!

Quotes:
"It’s the same with people who say, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesn’t kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly annoying."

"For two weeks, I lay awake at night and said Hail Marys over and over to stop my heart from beating too fast. I suddenly realized how much being a husband was about fear: fear of not being able to keep somebody safe, of not being able to protect somebody from all the bad stuff you want to protect them from. Knowing they have more tears in them than you will be able to keep them from crying. I realized that Renee had seen me fail, and that she was the person I was going to be failing in front for the rest of my life. It was just a little failure, but it promised bigger failures to come. Additional ones, anyway. But that's who your wife is, the person you fail in front of. Love is so confusing; there's no peace of mind."

"But for me, if we're talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This has nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That's part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy human bodies."

Rob and Renee.

Have you read this?
Does it sound like something you would like to read?
Any book suggestions for me?
I would love to hear from you!

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