Fox is a television character, and she isn't dead yet.
Two things I love:
William Wegman, the artist who is best known for his work with his phenomenally cooperative Weimaraner dogs, has produced a video called "Alphabet Soup" that involves his dogs introducing the alphabet, letter by letter. It is ideal for toddlers who are learning the alphabet, but it is nearly equally ideal for everyone else. Okay, $25 might be a bit much to spend if you're not a parent. Then again, maybe not, because it's so awesome. Wegman narrates the video, and his delivery is like that of Billy Collins, whose delivery is like that of Steven Wright. That is, deadpan, gently bizarre, asymmetrical, literate, surprising, playful. I'm destroying what I'm trying to say here, as I write it. Really what you should do is come over to my house and I'll play you this video, with Genevieve sitting on my lap, and you'll laugh and be totally charmed. It might help if you have suffered through a surfeit of crappy children's media beforehand. William Wegman rules.
OK, something for adults. Kelly Link is the best writer I've come across in a long time, and Magic For Beginners is the best book I've read since Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion. If you're like me, you read a lot of books, you watch a lot of movies, you listen to a lot of music, and a lot of it becomes sort of "whatever" after a while: you take it in, it does something marginally interesting to your life, and then it's mostly forgotten. Every once in a while, though, something comes along that stings your brain and wakes you up and puts a weird smile on your face. Magic For Beginners is doing that for me. I'm forcing myself to read it slowly, savoring each paragraph of each story, to prolong the pleasure of experiencing something that's so much fun that it feels like a secret, regardless of how many people know about it. What you should really do is come over to my house and I'll make you some Ak-Mak crackers with goat cheese and fresh figs, and I'll read you a Kelly Link story out loud.
William Wegman, the artist who is best known for his work with his phenomenally cooperative Weimaraner dogs, has produced a video called "Alphabet Soup" that involves his dogs introducing the alphabet, letter by letter. It is ideal for toddlers who are learning the alphabet, but it is nearly equally ideal for everyone else. Okay, $25 might be a bit much to spend if you're not a parent. Then again, maybe not, because it's so awesome. Wegman narrates the video, and his delivery is like that of Billy Collins, whose delivery is like that of Steven Wright. That is, deadpan, gently bizarre, asymmetrical, literate, surprising, playful. I'm destroying what I'm trying to say here, as I write it. Really what you should do is come over to my house and I'll play you this video, with Genevieve sitting on my lap, and you'll laugh and be totally charmed. It might help if you have suffered through a surfeit of crappy children's media beforehand. William Wegman rules.
OK, something for adults. Kelly Link is the best writer I've come across in a long time, and Magic For Beginners is the best book I've read since Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion. If you're like me, you read a lot of books, you watch a lot of movies, you listen to a lot of music, and a lot of it becomes sort of "whatever" after a while: you take it in, it does something marginally interesting to your life, and then it's mostly forgotten. Every once in a while, though, something comes along that stings your brain and wakes you up and puts a weird smile on your face. Magic For Beginners is doing that for me. I'm forcing myself to read it slowly, savoring each paragraph of each story, to prolong the pleasure of experiencing something that's so much fun that it feels like a secret, regardless of how many people know about it. What you should really do is come over to my house and I'll make you some Ak-Mak crackers with goat cheese and fresh figs, and I'll read you a Kelly Link story out loud.
hurled forth by Felix Helix | 6:31 PM
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