Less is More

Right now, Joe is reading Columbine, a detailed look at the stories behind the high school attacks in Littleton, Colarado in 1999, and I am in line to read it when he’s done.  Obviously, it will be a difficult read given the subject matter, but the cover conveys that tragedy as well with the sparse, gritty photograph, the only word “Columbine” drifting into the colorless sky. It’s moving, and it draws you in, despite the emptiness.

Last week the Empty Space Inspiration Blog showcased a list of some stunning minimalist book covers. Here are a few of my favorites:

How about you? Do you like minimalist book design or don’t you judge a book by its cover?

Packing It In

In less than two weeks, I am packing a U-Haul and driving from Boston, my home for the last four years, to Brooklyn, where a fantastic 1-bedroom apartment, an exciting new job, and an amazing boyfriend are waiting for me. Even with all of those wonderful things, I am apprehensive.  Though I lived in Florence, Italy for almost a year in college, that was a temporary arrangement. I’ve never lived more than two hours away from my family, all of whom live in Rhode Island. I’ve never lived in a city so frenetic and dynamic and HUGE as New York.  I’ve never even rented a U-Haul before!

I’ve yet to make much progress in packing, but I DID donate 4 large bags full of clothing to Goodwill and have already thrown out 2 bags full of miscellaneous papers, junk, and knick-knacks. I’m putting my couch up on Craigslist, along with a good deal of my other furniture. I’m planning on getting rid of at least a quarter of my books. Making a new start is invigorating not only for moving forward, but for shedding all of the things that have been weighing you down without you even realizing it.

The NYT had an article today about this very topic–do our belongings really make us happy? I’m starting to realize, more and more, that owning several essential, functional, and quality items is far better than having a closet full of worn-out junk and a shelf full of paperbacks I’ll never read again.

I’ve been living on a tight budget for a long time, so my shopping has been pretty restricted for the past year, but I’m thinking of challenging myself and only buying second-hand and vintage clothing and books (minus underwear and a few other essentials) for the next year, and limiting those purchases only to things I truly want. What do you think? If it’s possible to pull this off anywhere, it’s possible in New York.  I will keep you posted once I’m settled.

*image credit

An Ideal Bookshelf

Artist Jane Mount has embarked on a series called “Ideal Bookshelf,” in which she paints bookshelves of submitters’ 15-20 favorite books. You can click through and see the variety of the shelves she’s done–everything from cookbooks to Twilight to Salinger. I am tempted to submit my own bookshelf! Here’s more of Jane’s work:

She also paints animals and people.

Confessions of a Costume Designer

Everyone knows Oscar Wilde was a wit, but I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing one of his plays performed live until this past weekend, when saw Big Rodent’s production of An Ideal Husband. The play is full of snark, intrigue, sex, and scandal, and Big Rodent’s production is set in the 1960s, so there’s a bonus of Brit rock and fantastic costumes. I chatted with Kerry Gibbons, the show’s costume designer, about what it takes to put together costumes for a show of this scale.

A recent review of the show mentioned that the most major shift from the play’s original Victorian setting to the London of the 1960s was the costumes. Obviously, the costumes play a huge part in giving the audience a sense of time and place. How did you prepare to represent London in the 1960s on the stage?
I generally start by doing a ton of research, and this show was no different. In the case of our production, the setting was chosen before I came on as designer, so a lot of the conceptualization work was done for me, making it a lot easier. I have a whole binder filled with images from the late 1950s, early 1960s, late 1960s, and even some early 1970s. I always like to get a nice range around my intended date, which was decided to be 1964.

In addition to illustrating the setting, the costumes give us a sense of each character as well. Did you have each character in mind as you designed their costumes? Which character’s costumes did you feel were most representative of their personalities? Does any piece in particular stand out?
The great difference, I believe, between a fashion designer and a costume designer is the character and context of the production.  Every morning when each of us gets dressed, we think about what we’ll do today, where we’re going, the weather, who we’ll see. Beyond that, though, is the history of our clothing. You remember where you bought your shirt and who gave you your bracelet and how uncomfortable those shoes were the first week you wore them.  All of that is how the characters should think as well.
I really think that Mabel Chiltern’s costumes were some of the funner ones to design. I imagined the self-proclaimed “most ornamental person” in London would wear all pink all the time. The costume she wears in the first act is covered with pink paillettes. Not only is this super-mod, but I felt it captured a sort of opulence and ridiculousness that she and Lord Goring share.

Because this is a smaller independent production, the costumes needed to be done on a budget. Where did you find these costumes? How many were handmade?
There are four major ways to procure costumes. The first is rental, which we did very sparingly. The advantages of rental are obvious: you get perfect vintage costumes in great shape in a one-stop-shopping environment. However, they’re usually expensive and at the end of the production, you’re left with nothing.  The second is to pull from stock. We, thankfully, had access to the Village Light Opera Group (VLOG)’s stock to pull items. Because this was almost like a rental, we couldn’t really alter any items too much. The third is to purchase. Purchasing can be very cost-effective and you can alter items as much as you want. For example, Lady Chiltern’s dress in Act II was purchased at a Goodwill for $20, but was bright white and looked like an ugly wedding dress. I dyed it for about $4.50 and now it’s a lovely day dress. The fourth option, of course, is to build from scratch.
On a production like this one, you have to balance the time as much as the budget. Because we didn’t have the budget to pay anyone to build items, anything built for the production was built by me, so building was my last choice. I also had to do all the alterations, so I really had to think about what I was really intent on looking perfect. I wound up only building Mrs Cheveley’s dress for Act I and that was because I had something very specific in mind that I knew I wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere.
On larger productions, building an item is also a last resort. It may seem like the cheaper option, but when you’re paying for labor, it always winds up being more expensive than buying or renting. Usually, it’s reserved for things that you would not be able to find or for building multiples, such as 30 dancing fairies, who all have to match.

Mrs. Chevely’s dress in the first act makes a bold statement. Where did you get the inspiration for this particular piece?
A lot of Mary Quant’s stuff from the early 60s is really iconic to me. I believe I based this off of one of her designs. I’ll have to look through some of my research for you to see if I can find the exact images. I really think the biggest thing that made me decide on this design is what Lord Goring says in the following act, “Last night she was wearing far too much rouge and not quite enough clothing. Always a sign of desperation in a woman.” Given that we were no longer using Victorian standards of “not quite enough clothing,” I knew it would have to be fairly extreme to inspire such a comment. She’s a very sexy character, and thankfully, our actor, Anna Bridgforth, has a fantastic body, so she definitely is able to pull off the dress.
There’s also a pattern throughout the play of characters commenting on others’ inappropriate dress. I thought how less appropriate could you get than wearing a miniskirt with two giant holes in it to a party to which everyone else is wearing floor-length gowns?

You’ve designed costumes for quite a few plays. How has this experience compared to shows you’ve designed in the past?
I love working with my friends from college. I went to Georgetown with quite a few of the people who worked on the show, including the production manager, producer, stage manager, and two of the actors. There’s a certain amount of thoughtfulness that goes into the shows I’ve done with this group, which I really appreciate.
Also, even though we had a tiny budget, the timeline on this production was extended, which alleviated a lot of the stress. I started working on An Ideal Husband back in April or May, so I was able to really scour second-hand stores and eBay. I found a LOT of really wonderful vintage items on eBay for really cheap!  One of our actors said his mother freaked out at the beginning of the show because Lady Chiltern’s Act I dress was identical to her prom dress in 1964, which she still has hanging in her closet at home!

Check out more about Kerry Gibbons on her website!

An Ideal Husband runs every night through Saturday, July 24 at Wings Theatre, 154 Christopher St., West Village, NYC–$2 BEER EVERY NIGHT!

Buzzworthy?

You’re familiar with this cover, I presume? It started as a low hum, then a kind of insistent buzzing, and then it had descended on Boston like some kind of fever. That ubiquitous yellow cover–one night after work every single other person reading a book on the train was reading a Steig Larsson book (it was rush hour, so that was nearly ten people, in my train car alone).

Clearly, these books have sparked a virtual storm of interest and hype–this NY Times article sums up the frenzy, saying that publishers are scrambling for more Nordic Noir, ransacking Sweden’s resources for the next big thing (Larsson tragically passed away in 2004, shortly after the publication of the second book in the series).

I usually find myself eschewing whatever hyped series the masses are devouring: I HATED The DaVinci Code (I quit about 100 pages in because I couldn’t tolerate it anymore) and was only mildly entertained by the first Harry Potter book, so I’ve all but given up on the trendy books. However, this time around,  I found myself drawn to the idea of reading this massively popular novel, if only just to find out what all the buzz is about. It’s July, and I want to lose myself in an old-fashioned page-turner–the kind of book I could stay up all night reading just to find out what happens.

Using my powers of persuasion, I convinced my book club that this would be the perfect summer pick. We are meeting on Thursday, and I’m only about 150 pages in (the book is 590 pages long), and…I still don’t get it. What is the big deal about this book? People keep telling me it will get better, and maybe I need to be patient, but I don’t wanna be patient! I want it to be good now!

Have you guys read it? What do you think? Without any spoilers, what do you think is the attraction of this series?

Bookshelf Porn

For bibliophiles, it’s not just about collecting books–it’s also about how you DISPLAY your treasures. In my last apartment, my bedroom was round and lined with a shelf where I put all of my books. It was charming and adorable, but alas, when I moved, I could not take it with me. I bought a large new floor-to-almost-ceiling bookshelf for most of my books, with a few supplementary shelves in the kitchen and my bedroom, for my current apartment, and am full of schemes for how to display the books in the next abode.

I was pretty sure my bookshelf fetish was something strange and a little off-putting, but thanks to the lovely Internet, I have discovered thousands of fellow addicts. My friend Rosie was kind enough to share Bookshelf Porn with me, a site devoted to pictures of bookshelves and pictures of bookshelves only. I could spend all day clicking through the beautiful images, but here are a few of my favorites so far:

This looks so cozy, like a room where you would retire with your after-dinner cocktail to unwind from the day.

Wow. Yes. Obsessed with this quirky shape.

It’s like a game of literary Jenga, right in your living room! Also, vintage typewriters–TWO of them!

Shakespeare & Co. Mmmm.

It would be pretty awesome to stumble on this little cubby full of books in the middle of an empty field!

I dig the camera and the photos above. Nice touches.

How do you display your books?

On Public Reading

I had a little time to kill between yoga class and meeting friends for trivia last night, so I decided to read in the park. It was a lovely summer evening, and I had a bench all to myself in the Common. I was pretty engrossed in my book, enjoying the breeze and the quiet peace of reading time, just for me, when a man in a rumpled suit appeared out of nowhere.  “What are you reading?” he asked, sitting on the bench beside me as though we were old friends. Confused, I held my paperback up and mumbled, “Hemingway” in as uninviting but not rude tone as I could muster. For the next ten minutes, this man proceeded to ask me questions about my hobbies, my profession (“Are you an artist? I just get this artistic feeling from you.”), my background “”You’re definitely not from the East Coast–West Coast right? Like California?” I am from Rhode Island.), and my summer plans.

The real kicker came when he said I reminded him of Lady Gaga when he first spotted me  (“You know, the whole Diet Coke cans in your hair, cigarettes in your glasses kind of thing”) and when I laughed, he shook his head and said, “Yeah, no, now that I’m talking to you I can see that it’s more of an Angelina Jolie vibe.” WHAT? I am about as far from Lady Gaga or Angelia Jolie as they come–I was dressed in a white skirt, pink t-shirt, and multi-colored sandals, hardly Lara Croft attire. Also, I have nary a tattoo, alternative piercing, or small orphan.

Though I was tempted at several points to snap “I was enjoying reading my book in peace and quiet before you started talking to me, and would like to get back to that,” in response to his many questions about my book and why I was reading it in the park, I kind of enjoyed the quirky spontaneity of a conversation with a stranger in a public place who was largely non-threatening and just seemed genuinely interested in talking to me. Anyway, the interaction got me thinking about how reading in public can spark some interesting discussions and situations. Are you more likely to approach someone if they’re reading a book you love, are interested in, or that you hated? Have you ever been approached by a stranger because of a book you were reading? Did they compare you to Lady Gaga? Just curious.

Take Note

This week The New Yorker had an interesting blurb about marginalia–specifically the marginalia in the New York Public Library’s rare books collection by famous writers such as Jack Kerouac and William Coleridge. Marginalia, a fancy term for the notes and underlinings scrawled in books, can take many forms. The column got me thinking about how the way we read is such a subjective and personal experience–everyone processes what they read in different ways. I know people who consider it a form of vandalism to make any mark at all in the books they own, while others underline with abandon.

I don’t tend to mark up my books too much, but I like to be able to underline memorable passages, preferably in pencil, but I rarely make notes or comments. It just makes the experience of reading more personalized. Joe writes page numbers on the last page of the book with a couple of words from the passage he wants to remember. I find the process a little cryptic, but it doesn’t interrupt the flow of text as you’re reading.  I find it’s like a delightful game when I borrow a book from him and then flip to the last page to go back and see what he found the stand out phrases to be. They’re often different from the things I would choose,  and sometimes they’re the same. The picture, at left, is from the “Updike Marginalia” in Harper’s Magazine. From the page pictured, it looks like he has a similar method to Joe’s, but he also liked to make comments throughout the text, such as “too much throwing up” and “do we need this?” Apparently, many writers are better able to process the act of reading by writing.

How about you? Do you write as you read? Does it help you better understand or feel more connected to what it is you’re reading?

*cross-posted at Fringe

Nerd-Hot

In grad school, we called the boys who were attractive in a kind of unconventional, nerdy cute way “WLP hot,” as in, not quite “real” hot, just “Writing, Literature & Publishing (the name of our grad school program)” hot. Stereotypically, people cannot be both smart and hot–it’s just not socially acceptable. You pick one or the other. Or that’s what we’re led to believe, anyway. But is smart becoming the new hot, at least where women are concerned?

A couple of popular new blogs are mixing the boundaries between “real” hot and “nerd” hot. Hot Guys Reading Books is a blog that contends “There are plenty of attractive men in the world, but unfortunately few of them that are avid readers.” While I strongly disagree with this generalization, I think the blog is fun, and I appreciate that it’s playing with our preconceived notions about image a little bit. Here are a few images:

One of my favorite new blogs, Nerd Boyfriend, highlights the style of quirky icons who aren’t conventional heartthrobs. Best of all, they offer current items to help dudes out there emulate their style. Here are some highlights:

Tom Wolf and Kurt Vonnegut. Together. In a lifeguard chair.

LOVE everything about this photo of Jimmy Stewart.

Harold Crick from Stranger than Fiction–so great.

Oh Joyce, you magnificent bastard.

What do you think? Are these sites questioning society’s standards of attractiveness, or just promulgating stereotypes?

Holes

In talking with some friends at trivia last week, I started to think about the concept of literature as a kind of “canon.”  The term is bandied about with some frequency in my job (we publish literature anthologies for college students) and basically, it’s this notion that there’s a standard set of authors and works that everyone SHOULD read. Since I wasn’t an English major in college (weird, right?), I do feel like there are several gaping holes in my personal literature “canon.” They include: Hemingway, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Margaret Atwood, Moby Dick, David Foster Wallace, John Updike, Gertrude Stein, Tennesee Williams, Zora Neale Hurston, and Adrienne Rich.

Do you have holes in your reading background? Skeletons in your literary closet, so to speak?

Speaking of closets, I feel like there are holes in my actual closet as well–you know those pieces that every woman MUST HAVE? Chances are, I don’t have it. Classic trench? Don’t have one. Crisp white button-down? Nope. An evening clutch? A nice, high-quality belt? Nude pumps? The list goes on. What are your closet essentials? Are you missing any key items?

Leave your thoughts in the comments (literary or sartorial)–I’d love to hear them!