Both Hands

Tacoma Small Press Wayzgoose 2007

Frinklin and I stopped by King's Books on our way home from the Emerald City ComiCon to visit the Small Press Wayzgoose, which was quite fun.

There was paper-making going on outside and Kings was packed with people admiring the works of numerous talented Washington paper-smiths.

I purchased an incidental relation, a very cool handmade book about an almost unseen piece of furniture. I told the book-maker, Jenny Craig of Notta Pixie Press that it reminded me of Edward Gorey's book The Curious Sofa, in which various people perform "pornographic" acts around a stationary chiase. She informed me that she based it purposefully on that style, which you can see a sample of here.

I also had the opportunity to make my very own Beautiful Angle poster, and meet Lance and Tom in person. The guys said they were up late last night creating a new "Parking in Paradise" poster that is very cool. Hopefully it will be up at their website for purchase shortly.

A few shots from the afternoon, taken on the camera phone.

Handmade paper drying

Notta Pixie Press Table

Jenny Craig of Notta Pixie Press

My very own Beautiful Angle poster

Perdita

Perdi made her first trip to the dog park this week. Aside from being overly excited for the first half hour we were there and yanking my arm off, oh, and yapping until my ears bled, she did great. She leaped into the toxic swamp of a pond and require a bath, but avoided it like the plague after her one soaking. I think she didn't realize that it was actually deep enough to swim in.

Then she just curled up and looked as cute as possible.

Thursday Thirteen #1

THIRTEEN THINGS I SHOULD BE DOING INSTEAD OF BLOGGING

1. Answering e-mails
2. Getting coffee like I promised my husband I would 30 minutes ago
3. Weeding the yard
4. Vacuuming
5. Returning work voice mails
6. Straightening my desk
7. Installing the USB peripheral switch so my laptop and desktop can share a printer
8. Checking my bank balance
9. Paying the comic book store the money I owe since I forgot my check book yesterday!
10. Picking up dog crap in the back yard
11. Checking credit scores before refinancing our home loan
12. Searching in vain for packing tape to send out several packages that should have gone out far earlier in the week
13. Enjoying the current actual sunshine instead of rain in the Pacific Northwest

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Desert Diva
2. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Catalog Yourself

This is a fun little thing:

Found at so anyway...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Cover Art

Click the picture for a larger image.

Eh. Rather vague. I'm withholding judgment.

Sassy Book Score!

Got a hold of the publicist for How Sassy Changed My Life today. There is a copy now winging its way to my doorstep as I type.

Mission accomplished.

It's really impressive the impact this magazine had on me as a teen, as well as on other women as they grew up.

January 1991 was the first issue I remember purchasing. I accidentally left the magazine at my grandmother's house. She called me the next day and offered to buy me a subscription, telling me, "I'd like to buy you a subscription of the magazine you left here. I looked through it and I liked it. I think it's a very good magazine for teenage girls." God, I miss my grandmother.

You can still purchase old issues of Sassy on eBay for pretty reasonable prices. I still have my originally purchased issue, other copies that were sent via subscription, and a few back issue copies I swiped from the trashcan of my friend's older sister while at a slumber party. I am sorely tempted to bid on the late 80s copies I don't have. Especially the premier issue.

When Jane Pratt, creator of Sassy, introduced Jane magazine in 1997, I was a charter-subscriber and bought gift-subscriptions for my sister and best friend, thinking it would be similar to Sassy. Was I wrong. Jane was exactly like every other bad teen/young adult woman's mag on the rack. I didn't renew any of the three subscriptions after the first year. What an incredible disappointment.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. I've found BUST. If you were a Sassy reader as a teen, and are looking for something to fill that void, BUST works nicely, er...not so nicely. Including regular sections as "Why Jane Sucks". BUST isn't afraid to be mean, more snarky, more, dare I say - sassy?

A perfect example of how Jane differs from BUST is here.

You can also check out Bitch magazine, if you haven't already. Bitch's tagline is "A Feminist response to pop culture." Bitch tends to be a little more rant-y and angry than BUST, but when that's what you're in the mood for, it's perfect.

Look for a review of How Sassy Changed My Life here soon!

UPDATE: Apparently, the owner of the "bad Sassy" died this past weekend. Check out the obit on How Sassy Changed My Life's website.

More Begging to My Friends At Del Ray...

The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film looks exceptionally cool. From Library Journal:

The film's history unfurls through interviews with Lucas, cast, and crew members offering both positive and negative remembrances, plus script remnants revealing the story's multiple incarnations. And that's just the appetizer! Half the feast-with heaps of dessert-are the never-before-seen production pix and concept art offering serious behind-the-scenes peeks fanboys live for (keep 'em coming!) Portions of this info have appeared previously, but never in such fine detail.

Only $75 - Available April 24th!

About Ellen Forney, who will likely not remember this at all and if she ever sees this may think that I am a crazy fan-type person...which is kind-of true

One of the excellent perks of working for Bob's Hogs (holy Christ I almost typed the words "book biz" - shoot me now) is staying abreast of all the cool books that are coming out. Right now that means that I am beating on the door of the the publisher of this:

I've been trying to get an advance reader copy, without much success.

In 1995, I was lucky enough to be familiar with Ellen Forney's work from a collection of lesbian cartoonists, Dyke Strippers. I admired her art and thought she was very talented and funny. A few years later, Forney's collection of her "Seven in '75" comic was published in the form of a book, Monkey Food, and she toured in support. Toured right on down to the Bob's Hogs I happened to be working at in San Diego at the time.

I immediately spazzed. I was so excited. Until fate stepped in and demanded that something - I don't recall now what - force me to be elsewhere that evening. I do remember that I impressed strongly on my co-workers that they were to tell Ellen that I was very sorry I could not attend, as I was crushed (she was also very attractive and I believe we were both single at the time!).

Upon my return to work the following day I picked up my signed copy of Monkey Food and was very pleased to discover something special with her signature.

Jump to the here and now - Ellen Forney lives in Seattle and has a new book out, I Love Led Zeppelin, which is fantastic. She will also be at the Emerald City Comic Con next weekend, giving me a chance to finally say hi and embarrass myself in person.

Check out Ellen's blog and hey - still hot.*

*(A big thanks to my husband for being the understanding sort).

How Did I Not Know About This?!

Bed Races? Inspired by Frida Kahlo?!

Oh, I'm so there.

April 27th - Mark your calendars.

FeedTacoma

If you haven't yet, make sure you visit the new Tacoma-centric site FeedTacoma.

Organized by several Tacoma bloggers (and especially Kevin Freitas), it's self described as "A community resource by people who live and love Tacoma." And it really is.

Check out the main page, the discussion board, photos, and the events about town.

Lastly, the "About" page includes links to several Tacoma bloggers - bothhands to be added soon!

Good Reads

As I sat down at the computer this evening, I planned to check my e-mail briefly and then blog about the various adventures in animal husbandry in our household. But you can blame Violet for keeping me from posting an amusing story here tonight. She happened to send me a link to Good Reads, a website where you can list the books you are currently reading, have read, and would like to read. You can review them, comment on other's opinions, and the like. Suddenly it was two hours later and I rose, stiff after sitting immobile for so long.

I wish I could say that I listed nothing but tomes of immense volume and weight, immediately showing the level of sophisticated reading that I like to do. But the only thing that would come to mind was comic books. Tons and tons of comic books. If you look at my profile, it appears that all I read are comic books peppered here and there with a few animal stories. While I have been doing a significant amount of comic book reading as of late, and I admit that I've been on a Herriot-kick over the last couple of weeks, I do read other things. I swear. Now all I've got to do is waste a few more hours listing them all.

Anyone want to help me figure out how to make the sidebar on my blog large enough, or the parameters on this things small enough, to be compatible?

Book Crossing

Today we stopped at the open house for a gorgeous, 3-story Victorian house a couple of blocks away from our own house. The enormously high ceilings, flowing rooms, and seemingly endless amount of space were slightly depressing, but inspired a bout of cleaning that was greatly needed.

If you've got an extra $500K to spend, it certainly looks worth it (Most disturbing was the bathroom - almost as large as our master bedroom)!

I spent several hours cleaning up the book explosion from January that had overtaken the office after the ALA Convention. Instead of being smart and putting all of my catalogs (oh, so many catalogs) and hundreds of books in boxes immediately, I had left them in the flimsy, free bags that the vendors supply everyone with, and they had started to overflow and give way at the bottom, causing gradual lava flows of books and magazine-like products over the entire space. I would have taken pictures, but the state the room was in was just too embarrassing. Weirdly enough, our next-door neighbors have a perfectly elevated view from their kitchen through our office closet (?!) window. I'm sure they think we're huge slobs.

Now the books are boxed, and the majority have moved upstairs with the rest of our books that don't fit on our minimal bookshelf space. Our next house has got to have a library in it. In addition, the books from the Bob's Hogs Conference have also been sorted through, and I have four boxes of books to donate to charity.

What I'm really excited about is that I finally got registered on BookCrossing today. With the number of free books that I get from publishers and the number of books I have that I no longer need, I have more than enough to unleash upon the unsuspecting Tacoma public. I had no idea that you could even order Release Kits to put on your books to tag them as BookCrossing titles to make sure that people notice them and pick them up. Cool!

My first book release will be an advanced reader copy of Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. It looks like the book release supplies should be coming from Sand Point, ID, so hopefully I'll get to set it free this week.

Coffee Needs

It's getting to the point where I need one of these to drink coffee:

So convenient! Just strap it to your back and drink your 100 oz. of your preferred liquid.

Beautiful Angle

I feel like I'm so behind when it comes to learning about the city I live in. I've been seeing these posters here and there around Tacoma, but it took me weeks to finally figure out where I could get one.

Apparently I missed the holiday show in December, but will be on the lookout for future events.

Best Coffee in Tacoma

I have become addicted to the blackwater cafe.

I'm not exactly why it took me so long to go there, but now that I've walked through the front door, it's going to take a crowbar to get me out.

The coffee is delicious, it's not served scaldingly hot like some places, and there are books aplenty to read on the shelves in the back.

Dog Blogging

It's been another dog-heavy week for the Ensie-Frinklin household.

Pharaoh finally went to the vet for his dental work, and came out (gasp!) with all his teeth still in his mouth. No extractions! Dr. Warren of Metropolitan Veterinary Hospital is absolutely amazing. I have been so impressed with her treatment of all of our dogs and cats, and she and her staff are awesome. I highly recommend them if you and your pets live anywhere near Tacoma.

Pharaoh's first day of recovery was a little iffy - he couldn't stand for the length of time it took to finish his dinner. Very reminiscent of his first week with us, when he was forced to sleep outside, unable to make it up the stairs into the house. Today he is much happier, tromping around, eating heartily, and being his usual grumpy self.

Pharaoh convalescing -

Mostly, Pharaoh has been barking at The Jeffrey and our new puppy, Perdita, who have spent hours playing together like wild things. This is good to see, as The Jeffrey has been showing some signs of middle-aged stiffness and arthritis as of late.

Perdi -