Street Side Inspiration
***This day started off so dark & gloomy, but is now a bit better thanks to you all, my friend Julia booking a flight to see me for my birthday (!!!), writing a full if rough poem, hearing from a fav. professor (CH), gaining a new freelance project, prepping for facilitation of my first courses with Axia , completing everything on my to-do list, finishing a couple of reviews, the promise of more Mad Men, and receiving a letter and email from one of my favorite kids.
So really, I feel like this Marc Johns illustration:
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Oh, this man is an inspiration.
On the Street....Rue St. Honoré, Paris
Source
***How to Change A Frog Into a Prince
Start with the underwear. Sit him down.
Hopping on one leg may stir unpleasant memories.
If he gets his tights on, even backwards, praise him.
Fingers, formerly webbed, struggle over buttons.
Arms and legs, lengthened out of proportion, wait,
as you do, for the rest of him to catch up.
This body, so recently reformed, reclaimed,
still carries the marks of its time as a frog. Be gentle.
Avoid the words awkward and gawky.
Do not use tadpole as a term of endearment.
His body, like his clothing, may seem one size too big.
Relax. There's time enough for crowns. He'll grow into it.
- Anna Denise
from The Poets' Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm's Fairy Tales, 2003
as found via greatpoets .
The premise of the anthology sounds interesting. Have any of you picked it up?
When I was a Teaching Fellow with Hollins, one of my favorite assignments that I gave my students was to reimagine a fairy tale. The short stories they submitted were incredibly original and fun. We had a sociopath Rapunzel, the pea's perspective of the Princess & the Pea story, and two men at the heart of Cinderella, among other twists and turns.
I've got a fondness for dissected, mended, & twisted fairy tales. Blame it on my generation and liberal arts education.
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Makeshift Design & Illustration
These pieces are, at first glance, deceptively simple.
There's nothing simple about the framing of these elements, the dark, dream (nightmarish) colors, or the text.
A lot of the work plays with perceptions of symbols (srsly: go to the website and look up the Traffic Signs piece). I like that the artist triggers the brain into recognition - we know these images, these places, and these words - but pushes them around so they are fragmented and take on new meanings.
via Here
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