february cabinet.

(taken sometime between 1900-1920)

*lately* (or at least, last month)

reading:

* much like the last time i shared a cabinet of my currents, i unfortunately don't have time for reading. this sad truth is wholly in my control & so i have been trying to be more mindful (as reading truly is my first love) & take small bites from books of short stories. i just got in a hefty box from cake train  and have been nibbling on their 11th issue. it is filled with clipped dark gems, precisely the kind of writing that most attracts me. 

*i've also been slowly devouring lou beach's book '420.' it is a jewel box of tiny writings, all about 420 characters long, based on the amount of characters facebook allows for status updates. some are strange, others carry quite a profound weight for their miniature statures. i found him via my lovely customer service gal friday kim / wildthorne. 

* loved this post on the living apex blog on reasons to read more ( i agree with his theory of how we veg out on visual media) and its subsequent follow up with tips on how to read more ( i agree with his theory on keeping books in proximity, my/our homes are littered with books everywhere. i even sleep with them when i am in my loft. perfect bedfellows to fill the empty space.)

viewing/listening:

* we recently watched the gorgeous yet almost story-less 'only lovers left alive,'  a few of you mentioned on IG about this one when i posted on my previous film entry & rightly so. it featured a kind of trifecta of attraction for me; strange surrealist lady bird tilda swinton has never looked better in a role (seriously, when she is "packing" for her trip and fondles each book before she tucks it in her suitcase, i was breathless with pure visual pleasure and had an immediate, deep relation to her character), mia wasikowska has a small (albeit bratty role, you almost clap when she exits,)  & its a guiltypleasurevampirefilm that's somehow not nearly as cliche or predictable as one would expect from a supernatural romance. mostly what caught me was the morose melancholy meditations on life and the act of living, as well as the brilliant soundtrack, which was laden with jim jarmusch's band, sqürl, and has haunted me these past few weeks since. detroit also never looked so magical.

* les revenants is a french program that features the 'returned' dead, just as they were when they were alive ( an equally unsettling and complicatedly delightful notion.) they are neither zombies or ghosts (or at least at the point i'm at in the season anyway.) it is slow paced and creepy and has a beautifully haunting soundtrack as well by mogwai. i haven't finished watching it so won't say more, for now . . .

cocoon life:

* dreaming of building new/olde bookshelves and other moods for melancholy/new rooms over on my pinterest. 


fixed:

*i've written on here before about my strange attraction to icebergs/ glaciers. lately i've slowly been writing again and these primordial giants are seeping into my thoughts . . .

bloodmilk news:

* this is a bit belated but so many thanks for all the support and patience over the past holiday season. i am slowly working on streamlining things and building a tiny team as i navigate my growing pains while remaining as independent and community based as possible. <3 p="">
* i just listed high polish finish versions of a few of my most popular rings in the shop. 

* as i mentioned recently on IG, i am working on creating wedding bands for both of the 'belonging' rings as well as a third sister version. i hope to have more news on these soon, but for now, they are being designed to specifically 'lock' around each ring but will also look equally as nice work alone. 

ghosts & gators.

once upon a time i was a little girl who loved to spin tall tales. i wrote & wrote and landed myself in a mfa program in nyc. there, i discovered speculative fiction & found the missing puzzle piece that joined all of my obsessions into one neat little title. although work on my novella has been stalled since graduating by diversions of jewels and art reviews, fiction writing will always be my first and true love, something that i hope to start pounding away on with more fervor soon. oddly, a friend of mine recently visited a psychic and this psychic mentioned that i was a writer and working on a book about her. this seems to have come as a sign as my novella is based on our childhood together & when the supernatural world tells you to write, you listen.

anyway, karen russell was in a similar mfa program at columbia, so close to mine, and at the same time, that i've felt an odd kinship with her and have followed her work. her first book of speculative stories, 'st. lucy's home for girls raised by wolves' is one of my favorite contemporary books in the genre, & her new novel, 'swamplandia!' is currently on it's way to me now. there is a certain kind of strange envy i feel; happy that books like these are written and well received & the sneaky feeling that i've somehow abandoned my calling . . . 

xo

furiously furious fury

I have always been a furious reader. I could gulp books down like a box of red fries since I was in the 3rd grade. I become so enthralled in the strange worlds writers cast around me when I'm reading that I often myself reluctant to join the "real" world again. I was talking to my love last night about the different categories I find my reading fall under: candy reading: books I read purely for entertainment value, similar I guess to how some people watch tv. inspiration reading: books that I find inspire my writing or are similar to the writing I already do, and lastly informative reading: books that I take in more like texts and are mainly comprised of non-fiction. Does anyone compartamentalize their reading habits? ? ?

Here's some winter reads I've been juggling lately:

Kelly Link is one of my favorite writers, I even wrote my analytical thesis about her for my MFA. Her new book is aimed towards 'young adults' but who follows those rules? The cover features a lovely monster/conjoined twins shillouette and has so far been an interesting read of speculative fiction, which is the genere I gear my own fiction towards. Her worlds are so interesting that I found myself both stunned and incredibly jealous at her inventivness, for example: ghosts and living people marry and even have children, zombies have plans and the baysitter's dead and dangerous.

Stacey Levine is creepy as hell and I love her for it. I first ran aross her work in the rad journal 'Tin House.' The above book doesn't come out until March and I feel like an overzealous fan waiting on line in a sleeping bag for the release....if such things happened for book releases......

This book by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum is a real treat that I found out about via the amazing artist over at Art & Ghosts. The cover photo is by Lewis Carroll and is weird and beautiful and heartbreaking. I've been taking this book in small doses as its written in short titled vingettes which is also a way I love to write. This book includes a sleeping girl who may or may not be sleeping her life away, who becomes a freak, joins a circus troupe and falls in love with someone with a Dali moustache.........