Book Widgets

I have been playing around with widgets today trying to find the perfect a suitable library-type widget for displaying current and past reads. I found the Now Reading widget and it seemed great. It was simple, didn't require me to sign up to a website (Shelfari, anyone?) nor did it provide me with intrusive graphics (Shelfari, again). Unfortunately I've discovered that Now Reading is so simple that it is difficult to manage.

So far I have added my novels by authors A to B. That's a measly 50-something novels*, for your information. Now Reading requires me to first add books, then click on a different tab, then decide whether it is "on hold", "currently reading" or "finished" then I can go back to initial page where the book has already been sorted according to its status - and I start the process again. It is clumsy and not entirely intuitive. I'm not too sure about the status updates either as I have a tendency to dip in and out of books (what do you mean that I'm the only one to use most of my books as reference?!). Finally, I wanted a straightforward "to be read" option which I cannot seem to find.

Any book/library widgets you can recommend?

* yes, I still mourn the passing of my old book collection. I had to part with 7/8ths of my collection when I moved from Denmark to Scotland. The loss pains me daily and I keep finding glaring omissions in my collection. Plus I am sure I have a particular book but then I realise that I used to have it. It's no fun at all.

Joan Eardley

One of my biggest regrets about falling ill right now is that I have missed out on an exhibition of Joan Eardley's work. She is probably my favourite Scottish painter and I had been looking forward to the National Gallery of Scotland's first major Eardley exhibition. Before Christmas I was too busy to find time to make the trek to Edinburgh (and to be honest, the prospect of travelling anywhere near the middle of Edinburgh at the height of the shopping season scared me profoundly), but I had promised myself that post-Christmas I'd have a few weeks to catch up. As it turned out, I did not. Grrr.

But Eardley is wonderful. The painting I posted above ("Two Children") can be seen at Glasgow's Kelvingrove museum. The piece is big, powerful and almost overwhelming. It feels out of time - very modern, very traditional and very much of its time .. all at once. The Eardley paintings I have been fortunate to see all share this strange quality; they also share a quiet anger, an air of resigned melancholy. Her famous depictions of children have an odd, almost urban art feel to them coupled with a traditional motif (- and I cannot resist her almost nonchalant use of lettering). Eardley's later landscapes are almost abstract by comparison.

In unrelated news, I'm halfway through Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I tried reading it a few years ago but gave up after 45 pages or so. This time I'm mostly confined to my bed and am enjoying taking my time with the book. Sometimes you have to be in the right frame of mind for a book to find you.

Apologies to WCW

This is just to say
that amazon.co.uk is
running a couple of promotions
which end on Sunday.
I just placed an order worth
roughly £18 for some fiction
that would've set me back far more.
Forgive me but the books were
so delicious
so sweet
and so cheap.

Destroy in Order to Create

To make a Dadaist poem:

* Take a newspaper.
* Take a pair of scissors.
* Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.
* Cut out the article.
* Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.
* Shake it gently.
* Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag.
* Copy conscientiously.
* The poem will be like you.
* And here you are a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.

- Tristan Tzara

Tweedle-Dee

I am still home from work waiting for the Scottish NHS to discover what's up with me. Ms 4thEd (formerly known as Ms Bookish) is getting sick and tired of being, well, tired and sick, I tell you. In the meantime I am reading editorials on the US not-quite-but-almost election. I am reading books. I am occasionally cooking (when I'm not exhausted). I am getting twitchy.

I can't even write a proper, entertaining blog post anymore. Boo.

Public Writing

One of my current preoccupation is the idea of public writing - that is, writing/lettering/typography found in public places and spaces. I take photos whenever I see somebody doing something interesting - whether they be commissioned or non-commissioned pieces. I have even tentatively put together a small Flickr-set of some of my photos. One of my favourite examples stem from my erstwhile hometown of Copenhagen, Denmark. I was walking along a wall when I noticed the street name elaborately carved into the bricks. Above the carved brick you had the traditional blue-white street sign with the same name. Two centuries of labelling streets in one go. I was excited by the juxtapositions: permanence vs. easily replaced and serif vs sans-serif. I was also excited by how the contemporary street sign had been placed higher than the carved brick as if to exercise its dominance, its importance.

One of my Scottish friends, Fi, works as a curator and we recently spoke about the concept of public lettering and writing. Fi mentioned that the first thing was sprung to her mind was the Scottish Parliament's Canongate Wall. It is absolutely fascinating: various stones with quotes on Scottish identity and history are inserted into an outer wall, so anybody walking along the street will be asked to reflect upon Scotland, art and identity. Even the pavement has slates engraved with sentences. And, as I agreed with Fi, that is really a great example of public space and writing being combined to great effect.

And then you have non-commissioned stuff like graffiti and posters and random notes put up in windows..