A Lion Among Men.

"Can those tarnished by infamy escape their sobriquets—cowardly, wicked, brainless, criminally earnest—to claim their own histories, to live honorably within their own skins before they're skinned alive?"

This line (from the author's summary of A Lion Among Men) alone makes me fall in love with the book.

Cette ligne (du resume de l'auteur de Un Lion Parmi les Hommes) seule me fait tomber amoureux avec le livre.


P.S. I have this problem where I read the first few letters of a word or phrase and guess at what the rest is... I kept reading the title again and again to be "Life Among Men." I might like that one more though...


P.P.S. I highly recommend checking out L. Frank Baum on Wikipedia if you are unaware of his famous editorials days after Sitting Bull was killed and then the day after the Wounded Knee Massacre.

"The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at best, is a disgrace to the war department. There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.
The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.
An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that "when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre."

wingtips and bowties

Oh my I almost forgot! Possibly my favourite book from the blog, Book By It's Cover, was The Artist's Guide to Dressing Fancy. It's a coloring book! Too crazy.

Mon Dieu J'ai oublie! Possiblment ma livre favori au le blog, Book By It's Cover, a ete The Artist's Guide to Dressing Fancy. Il est une livre de coloraige! Trop genial.

Is there no translation for morphing?

Isn't it wonderful when you stumble upon something beautiful? I was in such a miserable mood but then I came across Book By It's Cover, a blog devoted to books and design and typography. It's not really a blog, now that I think about it, more like a review column... no, more like a book of the month spotlight. My favourite features are from the sketchbook section, just excepts from an artist's... well, their sketchbook! 

N'est-ce pas merveilleux quand vous trebuchez sur quelque chose totalement belle? J'ai ete d'une humeur massacrante mais ensuite j'ai trouve Book By It's Cover, un blog devoue aux livres et le design et la typographie. Il n'est pas vraiment un blog, maintenant que je le pense, plus comme une colonne critique.. non, plus comme un article ou un reportage sur les livres. Mes ouevres favori sont au le section de carnet a croquis, juste les extraits au le... le carnet a croquis a l'artist!
I'm really inspired by Mike Lowery's books^^ His one subtitled 'old church in norway' is just wonderful.

Je suis tres inspiree aux livres de Mike Lowery. L'un titre 'vieux eglise dans la norvage' est juste merveilleux.
They really made me remember how much I love moleskin notebooks. Is it too early to make a christmas list? Nahhhh.

Ils vraiment me fait me souviens combien que j'adore les carnets 'moleskin'. Est-il trop tot faire une liste de noel? Nahhhh.
Goldberg's books didn't have as much of an impact^^ but I just adore her sketches of the little morphing bird girl. Too crazy.

Les livres de Goldberg n'ont fait pas beaucoup de l'effet, mais j'adore ses esquisses de le petite oiseau fille. Trop genial.

Top three images, Mike Lowery

Bottom image, Ashley Goldberg

Even his doodles are brilliant

If you haven't read Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, I order you to do so immediately. I read it first a few summers ago.. I was probably around twelve and hadn't read much of his work. It proved to be a very adequate Vonnegut 101. It's basically an autobiography, really, so I expected that it would lack the heart that's so unmistakably present in his fiction. Luckily this is not the case. The book is really like a big cluster of brilliance packed in so tight that every word, every sentence is stunningly simple and honest. 

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."

-Hemingway 

I'm always so pressured to articulate everything I know, or think I know, into my writing. I doubt I'll ever be talented enough to do it in one sentence. But Hemingway is saying that it doesn't have to be everything. It just has to be something. Brilliant. 

Every sentence that Vonnegut writes, or types, should I say [he used a typewriter or a pencil and paper for every book he had written], is true. And Man Without a Country piles all those together into something almost all encompassing. True, he didn't get it all, but he only had eighty four years. Had he been given another eighty four, I wouldn't be surprised. But eighty four is long enough for a man to suffer, how could one want to add on time to his sentence?

orange mushrooms and candied ginger

(satu.)

a dark gray quilt with two squares of orange, dear and beloved wet soil and rain

where's the little bottle labeled "drink me" when you need it

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be the size of an ant.

where the wild things are

Oh no please don't go,

we'll eat you up we love you so.