From Gala Darling:
Post a photo of yourself looking REALLY, deliriously happy...!
Why not?
And who else had braces and still covers their mouth when they laugh?
This is from a convo I'm having with an LJ friend, reminiscing about wisdom from my late mother (such as "I don't care who you like, Rie, just stop whining about it").
Really, one of the few parades left in the city that successfully melds that old-time wildness with the newfangled kid-friendly vibe is Coney Island's annual Mermaid Parade. Topless women and babies, that's what you'll see these days. It seems an odd parade to celebrate in the format of a picture book, but Mermaid Parade attendee and illustrator Melanie Hope Greenberg is up to the challenge. With her bold colors and sense of pizzazz, Greenberg brings to life an event that continues to enthrall both children and adults alike with a love of fun, costumes, and general unavoidable weirdness.
Ani DiFranco sings "32 Flavors"
Lately I've been thinking about the way we present ourselves to the blogosphere, after have a bit of an identity crisis over my writing voice, the direction of this blog, and life in general.
Long story short: there is a very real girl, or young woman, behind the blog. I turned 23 a few weeks ago, and in another couple of weeks I'll be starting my second semester of grad school. Like many book bloggers, I am joining the esteemed path of professional librarianship; despite a lousy job market, I've never found a field that suited me better. Books are love. When I find a particularly good one, I'll hug it till I get to the cash register, because some combinations of art and words and presentation are just magic, and thrill me into tiny bits. I do, occasionally, wear purple and shiny bits. I intermittently keep a very pretty journal, and write one poem per affair of the heart and no more.
On the other hand...
I love dirty jokes. Photostories about dolls with filthy mouths or censored Muppets make me laugh until I cry. I don't wear heels for political reasons, and cut my hair short for practical ones. I really like red lipstick and ties on girls, and my dream career is librarian by day, drag king/faux queen by night. I like hiking in the Greenbelt. I've kissed somebody whose name I never learned. I used to not shave if I was feeling cranky at my internship, until I learned one of my supervisors did the same thing. (<3 her!). Gender commodification at the local Toys'R'Us is enough to send me into a nasty 3rd wave ranting fit. I think fashion magazines are irrelevant and that Web 2.0 may save the world. Sometimes I make up really horrible songs about people who have wronged me in the past, and sing them in my head to make the day just a little bit brighter.
I am 32 flavors and then some, and some of those flavors want their chance to speak up. If the thought of your local Rie going a little bolder and less sunshiney in general freaks you out, then you may skip out with no hard feelings. If not, welcome to the show.
Hey, guys!
Just letting you know that my lil' weekly feature, If You Loved, just went live on BUST Magazine's website-read it here! You, my lucky readers, will get a hint at what title will be featured on Mondays before the piece goes live on Tuesdays--this week, it passes on The Orpheus Obsession by Dakota Lane to lovers of Weetzie Bat, a natural progression. I've got about a month's worth already lined up, and matching them is very exciting--but I'd love your help, too. If you have any old literary loves that you'd like to see paired with a fresh new title, drop me a line in the comments and I'll keep it in mind when writing the next few pieces. Happy Reading!
P.S. I've reviewed The Orpheus Obsession in the past; have a peek at it.
Photo by Alice's Tea Cup
I arrived on this planet 23 years ago today, and I'm celebrating with lunch at Alice's Tea Cup with two good friends, and then a bit of adventuring around Union Square with a visit to my old Place of Internship. Some of my amazing friends have gifted me already, and I'd like to share their art with you.
Callan is the secret love child of Hillary Knight and Mary Blair, but you didn't hear it from me. If you care about me, you'll just have to care about her too, because she's the other half of my brain and our wands have the same core. We enjoy the bon mots of Oscar Wilde, giggling at ridiculous hats, and plotting world domination by cute things. This is her portrait of me; the spiked wheel is for St. Catherine of Alexandria, patron saint of librarians, and the unicorn...well...why not a unicorn?
Krista will be the next John Lasseter some day, just you wait and see. She can leap tall storyboards in a single bound and sketch faster than a Pratt freshman on a quad mocha and a thesis due the next day. Recently, she spent a week here, where we left secret messages for visitors to Governor's Island, painted the roses (and my hair) red, and stood in defiance of the rain on my parade. She's drawn an illustration for the picture book I've written, Dear Mrs. Winterbloom.
Like many of you, I usually have a couple of creative projects brewing. Currently, I'm working on a comic series with my friend Krista. She draws, I wrote, and we both brainstorm until wee hours of the morning about the virtues of vortices vs. the Mothman.
I don't want to say too much, as I'm a superstitious sort, but it's something like the child of Weird N.J. and Blue Monday with a touch of Boy Meets Boy and Coraline. Creepy, kooky, mysterious and snarky. As all roads lead back to Polyvore, I've been whipping up sets to help figure out just who these ghost chasers and folklore hunters are.
Come, meet the cast!
Stella only falls in love with girls she can't have, because it's easier to deal with unrequited crushes. She plans to write her thesis on the perils of psychic powers and teenagerhood in YA literature, and marks up her books with mysterious notations only she can decipher. Her dormroom houses a dollhouse full of lizards, and points to anyone who gets that reference. Japanese snacks and steampunk comic books make her happy, but don't tell anyone that she was a convention-roadtrippin' fangirl in her teens. Come midnight, you'll find her engaged in an act of bibliomancy or fighting with her favorite tarot deck.
Taylor finds that his case of synesthesia only aids his choice to major in art. He enjoys yard sales and thrift stores, especially when the objects start talking to him. He secretly wishes that Doctor Who will show up when he's walking to class and make him a new companion, so he always keeps his bag packed.
Eleanor doesn't have secret powers that let her blow things up with her mind, so she became a chem major. Those who spend a lot of time with her soon realize that everything she says comes true in the future, which leads to a rather empty dance card. The gummy 'staches are a gift for Taylor; he uses them in his 3D Design class, building a tiny carousel entitled "Mustache Rides."
Why the blog title, you're probably wondering, when I'm a fan of Ms. Block?
Because when I first devoured her ouvre, I wondered where to go from there, because one needs new themes to explore, and there are so many wonderful authors out there that need the exposure.
Also? Writing's fun.
What to expect from Leaving Shangri-L.A.? Book reviews, of course. Movies too. Links to interesting arty things that Weetzie Bat would approve of, and localish (NYC tristate area) events of an odd or charming nature. Comments are more than welcome; flames will be fed to the fairies so we can watch them explode.
In short, "Loved Weetzie Bat? Here's what to read next."
Welcome.
I suppose Hillary Carlip is all to blame.
For my 8th Grade Graduation, my mother let me order a nice stack of books from the newly launched Barnes and Noble online bookstore. While gleefully pursuing books that had eluded me for years, ones that I knew only by their brief descriptions in the backs of other books or from monthly book club pamphlets, I came across a new book by Hillary Carlip, co-authored by a vaguely familiar author named Francesca Lia Block, on those enticing things called zines. Added at last minute to the shopping cart, I waited for my order, giddy with my impending graduation and the promise of a stack of brand new books.
What happened after they arrived? Well, that’s for part two.
Some bright summery spring day in 1999 (I remember it being a rather lovely warm spring), a big box of books arrived on my doorstep for the first time. There were more books than I’d ever seen in one place since my mom’s former student, who worked at Scholastic, sent her a big box of books in gratitude for all she’d taught him/her. Mom kept the letter; I got the reading material. Anywhoodle, I put them all in a circle, spun around, and picked one. The chosen tome?
The Zine Scene.
I’d done a smidge of research on my own: zines were self-published and pasted up by hand, they featured art and writing and observations and occasionally something screen printed or embroidered, and the creators were so much cooler than I am. The Zine Scene was printed up in the rough, naïve fashion of the day, illustrated with vintage ephemera and beauty queens and random words in a much messier, grittier style than you’d see amongst collage artists and zinesters today. The writing was inviting, real, and full of description bombs of the sort I never knew I’d been in love with.
Later that year, two things happened that turned my steady if boring course into strange seas full of phosphorescent jellyfish and blue-haired sirens—and no, they weren’t transferring schools and accidentally happening upon the love of my life kissing another girl. I bought a copy of Girl Goddess #9, and joined the Witchbaby mailing list. The book was the best thing that happened to me that year; here was a little pocket-sized paperback with heart-shaped hands on the cover, and between the covers were stories that felt like they were written just for me. These tiny, purple-y fairytales started their own tiny, purple-y revolution. I created more, saw more, experienced things instead of just walking by them and waiting for the day to end. Things that I thought were weird or evil, like being gay, became just another human characteristic. Once I became a lurker on Witchbaby, these horizons stretched even further. Here were dozens of girls—mostly, D.an and Mookie were the only males I knew of—just like me, creating and living and loving and loosing and writing about it, with more flair than I had, but that would come in time.
Eight years later, Witchbaby is gone, but I’m friends with the former mod (who scared the hell out of me at the time, it’s really a funny story) and a few of its members. I still create and live and love on a daily basis, around searching for an internship and helping run a household. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened without this book and those dozens of posts per day, maybe they would have. Either way, I’m happy with how they turned out.
Sometimes, I even let the Girl out of the cupboard to play in the sunshine.
