lf

📖 artist journal // collaborative zibaldone 📚 digital index

[bookjanitor]

Selections from Amelia’s Notebook, Marissa Moss

Moss, Marissa. 2006. Amelia's Notebook. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Notes

Visuals that stuck with me: jelly roll nose (not shown), style of taped items, beads, stationery, grape nails and polish, Gigi. Oddly gross book, but “plot” hangs together poorly as an adult reader.

[bookjanitor]

I, Spy: A Book of Picture Riddles

source: scholastic, inc

pub date: 1992, looking at aug 2022 printing

provenance: library hold i picked up after a very & surprisingly sweaty early spring walk with my partner.

metadata:

photos: walter wick

riddles: jean marzollo

book designer: carol devine carson

pub by cartwheel books, a scholastic imprint

initial notes:

gets into deep foundational aesthetic logics and preferences and draws. LOVE it. great series to return to. meditative, contemplative, gave a busy brain a purpose.

visual notes & resonances: clearly one root of fascination with aesthetic logic of display; many connections with core images/preferences/fixations, on reflection. maximalist absurdist collection, knowledge/hoarding, visual and cultural sense of both order and chaos thru that abundance. color balance important for effect to work. i like an architectural element OR an all-over composition; illusion of order or celebration of none.

score: i completed every puzzle with the possible exception of toys/ray, and i got the every page answer wrong (ladybug/paperclip) tho i had, separately in my mind, noted the frog is on every page.

reflection: is the absurd the whimsical without context/explanation/reassurance? when is it horror? is the absurd the whimsical with a tinge of horror, the awareness of the possibility of horror? for the innocent the awareness, for the experienced the madness vent? when do these images become scary and why?

[bookjanitor]

Afterword from a sequel, School Days. Highlights mine. What a deceptively simple set of goals, gorgeously executed.

[bookjanitor]

i got curious about the homestead depicted on this label and wanted to know if it was a real place. so i looked up the company and found this explanation of the ad campaign:

In 1916, Chaney looked to a large advertising agency for help. The ad agency asked Mr. Chaney what he hoped to achieve through an advertising campaign and Mr. Chaney replied, “I would like people to eat more cranberries.” Thus the ad agency came up with the brand “Eatmor Cranberries.”

sometimes history is very straightforward.

[bookjanitor]

026 [1948] Wisconsin's Largest Elm Tree

Printed on front: Wisconsin's largest elm tree with over 100 foot spread at the Grignon Homestead. Kaukauna, Wis. 26.

Postmark on back: April 23, 1948 1:30 p.m. Kaukauna, Wis.

[bookjanitor]

73: Omocha-e of Cats in Human Clothes // 79: Cats // 80: Record of Cats

digital archive trawling jackpot!!!

[bookjanitor]

72: Omocha-e of Beauties: "Small prints of women with poetry."

google translates the first line as "now and then," but i have no idea what the rest says. wish i did!

[bookjanitor]

a collection of weird lil guys

87: Couretesan Hagoromo of Kadoebiya // 70: Sannô gosairei dasnhi zukushi // 82: Miniature Versions of Prints from 'One Hundred Pictures' by Kyōsai

per the library re:82, under the cut find, "Small prints of yokai and people farting, all humorous depictions of every day life or encounters with the supernatural."

[bookjanitor]

Textiles & Details

31: Imoseyama Onna Teikin // 32: Futatsu Chôchô Kuruwa Nikki // 40: Jiraiya goketsu monogatari

[bookjanitor]

Scrapbook of Japanese Print Palettes

a couple prints that i thought had interesting colors

28: Renshô Monogatari // 20: Genji moyō furisode hinagata // 38: Go Taiheiki Shiraishi Banashi // 77: Women

[bookjanitor]

10: Kanadehon Chūshingura // 仮名手本忠臣蔵, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1851

Right Panel: Bandô Shûka I as Okaru

Left Panel: Ichikawa Danjûrô VIII as Teraoka Heiemon

this one's got it all: a neat stone lantern, cool geometry, AND adorable mushrooms!

i didn't notice til i was correcting my tags on this post that this print is by utagawa kuniyoshi, whose work inspired one of my tattoos. i chose him specifically for his use of textiles, so there you go!

[bookjanitor]

07: Date kurabe Okuni kabukiJ // 伊達競阿国戯場, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1849

Right Panel: Onoe Kikujirô II as Takao

Middle Panel: Ichikawa Danjûrô VIII as Kinugawa Tanizô

Left Panel: Ichikawa Danjûrô VIII as Ashikaga Yorikane

BAT KIMONO??? BAT KIMONO!! my boy utagawa kuniyoshi does it again with the prints

[bookjanitor]

03: Sekai no hana oguri gaiden // 世界花小栗外伝, Utagawa Kunisada, 1851

Right Panel: Bandō Takesaburō I as Oguri Sōtan, and Iwai Kumesaburō III as Manchō musume Okoma

Left Panel: Onoe Kikujirō II as Hitachi Kohagi

spending some time looking at digital archives instead of doomscroling. look at the TEXTILES! the colors! the expert pattern mixing!

[bookjanitor]

one of my partner’s students drew for us!! left: our cat in his natural state (wearing his soft donut-cone, wrapped into a purrito, profoundly depressed). right: my favorite pokémon wearing the cat’s cone. this student met me ONCE at an art show and she remembered my favorite pokémon 😭

[dankzombiereviews]

Book thoughts: Take a Hint, Dani Brown

4.5 ✰

the smut is exquisite, the friends to lovers is spectacular, and the hero is fantastic. My only problems with this is dani herself, sometimes she irritated me a lil too much with how oblivious she was, and no past relationship can justify the was she treated zaf in the middle/climax of the book

also i'm not an astrology girlie or witch so the emphasis on those parts were hella boring to me

art by hellhoneyy on instagram

[bookjanitor]

short & sweet review that nails my thoughts on this one! Dani acts like a real asshole and Zaf is nicer than he should be. otoh i am the direct beneficiary of that dynamic irl. confirm it rules. the art depicts one of my favorite scenes that reminds me most of my partner; Dani accidentally library power-naps thru a lunch date. Zaf guesses that’s what happened, so he brings her library-appropriate food and wakes her up. he’s not mad and she internally freaks the hell out over the fact that he’s not mad. Dani is horrible because she is a personal attack. loved the book, highly recommended.

[willmarstudios]

"The thing about mental health was, you couldn't take a course of antibiotics and be magically healed. Some people's brains just thought too much or felt too much or hurt too much, and you had to stay on top of that."

'Take A Hint, Dani Brown' by Talia Hibbert

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

I read When Women Were Dragons today and I can tell that the author has a lot to say and wants to explore, but I don't think she necessarily did so successfully

The book follows Alex Green as she explores the magical realism world of the 1950s as angry women get fed up with their lives en masse and turn into literal dragons and disappear

It is certainly an interesting premise and one I will not bash. It was really interesting, especially in the beginning as it explores the world of a child who is never allowed to ask questions or receive information to help her understand the strange world as her mother develops cancer and her aunt then gets fed up with life and turns into a dragon, leaving her with a new little sister and the memory of an aunt she is never allowed to talk about. Personally, I love this set up. It's really interesting and gives a lot of internal and external conflict.

We read as Alex grows up in Suburban AmericaTM with her mother who gradually grows more fragile, a father who gradually grows distant, and a little sister/cousin (this fact will be brought up constantly) who is bombastic and the spitting picture of her birth mother. Alex is smart and attends Catholic school where she is constantly in trouble for her "crazy" ideas and she falls in love with the girl down the street

There are also supplemental documents thrown in there, typically documenting the life of Dr. Gantz who is the leading disgraced scientist of dragon research. I absolutely love the use of in world documents as a story telling device, but this was a total fucking waste of time, in my opinion. I felt like none of the information was actually relevant to the plot itself nor did it effectively worldbuild

By the end of the story, the dragons were honestly a total flop

I'm typically not a stickler for dimensions and the like, but the sizing was so fucking inconsistent. At some moments the dragons seemed almost anthropomorphic in their size and shape, other times they were large enough to pick up tanks. It's stupidly confusing for literally no reason

The other issue is literally the core plot of the book: why do women turn into dragons? At first, it's clearly anger and frustration, but about half way through it starts completely disintegrating and some people turn because they are lesbian and full of queer love?? Her mother never turns becuase,,,,, why? Alex never turns at all despite showing early on that she had the ability to, she just simply never does. Maybe this is just me, but I feel like I should understand the basic worldbuilding concepts better at the end instead of worse

And then the magic of knots. It is a motif seen throughout the book, especially in connection to Alex's mother as she was a mathematician who studied knots as well as being an incredibly skilled fiber artist. It's also introduced in a supplemental text where it describes a town who found magic knots that tied down women. Like, obviously there is a connection there, right? Especially as she gets sick and beings frantically tying complicated knots on her daughters hands as she gets dick again. But that's it. The magic of knots simply ceases being anything beyond a motif. Maybe that's why Alex never transformed, but it is never actually explored and it's extremely strange to me. They kind of just exist with an implied magic and connection to her dead mom but they don't actually, like, do anything for the plot

Final issue with this story: it very explicitly only focuses on white upper middle class housewives

Other societal issues are mentioned offhandedly, but they always happen somewhere else. Despite it clearly being about female rage (in the beginning), there is absolutely no exploration of black or poor women's rage. They all just kinda exist off screen.

It touts itself as being a feminist story yet only ever seems to discuss the most surface level white feminism that almost engages in 80s feminism that says women can only be liberated if they all become lesbians and live separately from men (aka misandry)

Tldr: I didn't hate the book and wouldn't stop anyone from reading it, but the world building and themes are incredibly flimsy and it engages in such weake and surface level feminism that it honestly leaves a lot to be desired. I would love to see this concept written with much more depth in all front because in my opinion, it certainly does have potential

[bookjanitor]

another pretty solid review; i sincerely thought i was missing something as a reader given the way the dragon and knot metaphors both completely fell apart (literally ha ha). they were both extended way past the point they made any sense. a lot of the themes about transition sound like they’re about gender transition, but the book reads pretty cis to me overall.

[thetypedwriter]

When Women Were Dragons Book Review

*Spoilers for the Novel ahead*

When Women Were Dragons Book Review by Kelly Barnhill 

This book unfortunately broke my beautiful golden streak of good books. 

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill is a surprisingly boring book for a story where women turn into dragons. Not metaphorically, but literally turn into dragons and still it was a bore. 

The whole premise is an allegory for female rage and generational trauma starting in 1950’s America. Barnhill could have done so many interesting things with this idea, but instead she swaps out civil rights for dragons rights and that’s…about it believe it or not. 

If Barnhill wanted to focus on female rage and trauma passed down from our families she could have done it in a much clearer, more subtle way than having women turn into dragons and yet act exactly like anthropomorphized people. 

The story follows a main character, Alex Green, from her childhood until her deathbed. However, the pacing of this book is utterly atrocious.

More than half of the book features Alex as a child where every adult tells her not to ask questions, to keep her head down, to be obedient, and to never, ever, discuss dragons…yet, that’s the premise of the book?

So as a reader, you’re waiting for most of the novel for some kind of explanation of why women are turning into dragons and yet we are forced to sit through chapter after chapter where our child protagonist has zero idea and actively avoids thinking about it.

Instead, we are forced to read the slog of Alex’s childhood with her negligent father, strict and cold mother, and rambunctious sister/cousin/child. 

Yup, you read that right. 

Finally, some time passes and Alex is a teenager now raising her sister/cousin/child named Beatrice after the passing of her mother and the abandonment of her father and aunt.

These chapters are depressing and uninteresting as Alex repetitively complains about how hard her life is and drones on about what she needs to do while proclaiming her love of math. 

Then, abruptly, the aunt from her childhood, and Batrice’s real mother, returns in her dragoned form along with thousands of other dragons who had just been dilly dallying for the last fifteen years or so exploring the earth. 

Alex wants nothing to do with this amphibian aunt who left her to raise her child as a teenager while she was off flying around with her dragon lovers, but eventually Aunt Marla wears Alex down.

So much so that the next few chapters are Alex living in a commune type of house with Marla and her three female dragon lovers and a halfway transitioning Beatrice. Alex attends the University of Wisconsin as she comes to terms with this new society and her shifting family dynamics. 

Then, I kid you not, Barnhill spends the rest of the novel simply summarizing what is happening in society in an incredibly mundane display of show-not-tell. We zip through years as Barnhill goes on and on and on about dragons rights, marches, education, and the impact dragons have on American society. 

Not only is it monotonous, but it’s ridiculous. Dragons can stop and sniff out bombs, are large enough to lift heavy buildings and construction parts, but also don aprons, bake bread, wear purses, and reapply lipstick?

The discrepancy between the dragon's description and their behavior is downright implausible and takes you out of the story continuously as a reader. 

You are told that they are fierce beautiful creatures who have the strength and survival skills to explore the cosmos and yet they also return just to work in community parks and attend schools?

None of it makes any sense. Barnhill’s swap with historical civil rights with dragon rights is also an odd choice that left a sour taste in my mouth. 

The only explanations of dragoning and the phenomenon it entails are interspersed chapters in the form of journal entries, medical reports, and court documents.

These entries are beyond dull, repeat the same banal information, and provide nothing of note or interest for the reader. I began to skip through them towards the end because they were so irritating and wordy. 

Speaking of the end, it was a shitshow. 

Alex finds her literal only friend from childhood, Sonja, reconnects and falls in love with her, only for Sonja to change into a dragon and fuck off, leaving Alex behind, who didn’t feel like joining Sonja as a dragon.

Then, skip decades and Beatrice is winning a Nobel Peace Prize and Alex is suddenly a retired old woman lamenting about the people in her life who have died, including some wife named Camilla (?!), and that’s…it. 

That’s the whole book. 

I’m actually speechless just writing this because it’s dawning on me how poorly written and executed this book is.

From start to finish, this book took an interesting premise and completely ruined it with a stupid and irritating main character, abominable pacing, so much show-not-tell that I felt like I was attending a school lecture, and nonsensical writing choices that made this book difficult to immerse myself in and enjoy in any capacity. 

It wasn’t the worst book I’ve ever read, but thinking about all the pieces that make up When Women Were Dragons I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion that the book is bad and not worth the time or money I spent on it.

I didn’t even get into the gender dynamics of the book (every man being the worst piece of shit person possible with zero redeeming qualities) but I’m too tired and frustrated to do it now. Avoid this book at all costs. 

Recommendation: This book is not worth anyone’s time. If you love dragons, look literally anywhere else—Eragon, Fourth Wing, A Song of Fire and Ice—I don’t care. Just don’t turn to Kelly Barnhill. 

Score: 3/10

[bookjanitor]

just finished this book! looked up the title to see if i was confused by the dragon metaphor or the book just wasn’t very good, and found a pretty good summary of my own thoughts here.