Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 35

Alt-Chinese adventure tale from Sherwood Smith

The first in Sherwood Smith's new xuanhuan series, The Phoenix Feather, is out today. This is a **wonderful** series, one of the best things I've read all year: excellent characters, adventure, heroism, mystery, beauty, human insights, all in a super well-realized alternative China.



It's available both in paperback and as an ebook--read more about it and find links for placing an order at her post . Highly, highly recommended!

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Cinderella's Guide to Glass Shoes

The ninja girl sometimes makes tiny books, and recently she made one on glass footwear. She was inspired by experimenting with making waraji--Japanese straw sandals--which got her thinking about the viability of glass as a material for making shoes. ( Here is a photo of some waraji.) She knew that shoes are sometimes made of inflexible materials--think wooden clogs--so she researched types of those and created CINDERELLA'S GUIDE TO GLASS SHOES



The shoes are rated three stars for possible--you migh...

"I have rope"

I've been visiting my father, usually on Sundays, during the summer, but this weekend, knowing that Henri was coming, I went on Saturday. When the hurricane came up, he reminisced about the famous (in these parts, anyway) Hurricane of 1938, which he could remember.

My dad was a little boy of seven at the time, living in Lexington, MA. He said that at that time, no one in the region had any experience with hurricanes. His uncle Sal (whom I believe I've mentioned on these pages before: he was part ...

airplane airplane sorry I'm late; I'm on my way so don't close that gate

I satisfied a long-standing wish earlier this week and watched the planes taking off from the Northampton airport. I was with the healing angel and her significant other--we had a picnic.

It's a beautiful area, with cabbage, potato, and cornfields all around, plus plenty of wildflowers, and a view of the Holyoke range:



And there were *lots* of planes flying that day:







( 22-second phone video of a plane taking off )

I could have watched them all day, but work called. I'd like to go back, though, maybe...

dreams of poetry

The cat wakes me up (most delicately) in the wee hours, and when he does, if he's interrupting a dream and I write it right down, I get it in clarity and crazy detail.

Other people's dreams are boring--but not this one! It's a youtube video preview for a Black female poet's spoken-word performance.

You hear her voice-over, saying,

You act like you never asked
someone to share a secret
but only tried to steal it

The image is of her behind a chainlink fence, and with her, all around her, are papers an...

Timey-Wimey

One day last summer, I attempted to bring an injured catbird to a wildlife rehabilitation center. Sadly, the bird died in transit, but on the way, I discovered the existence of the Willard House and Clock Museum.



The plaque outside the house contains this thought-provoking statement:

"The realization that time could be spent rather than passed marks a profound change in the way Americans think--and work."

How magical: a whole museum of clocks! I resolved to go as soon as conditions permitted it.

Th...

Indigo

The sunken walls of Firelei Báez's vision of Sans-Souci Palace are decorated in blue to recall the indigo dye used in West Africa, and at the end of the installation, in a separate space, is a giant painting by Stephen Hamilton, celebrating the use of indigo in textiles:



There are also samples of indigo-dyed fabrics created by Agnes Umeche, based on traditional designs.



And this informational plaque tells you a little more about Agnes Umeche and her work. (To read the text you'll have to click th...

Firelei Báez exhibit

Today was the day we chose to go to the Firelei Báez exhibit! Nothing like a sunny, mild, first-of-August day to venture into Boston for the first time in, oh, a very long time.

Everything was enchanting and exciting, but I will try to space things out over posts so as not to be gushing in too many different directions at once. Today I will gush mainly about the exhibit. ... Actually, the gushing will mainly take the form of photos because, having read Siddhartha Mitter's New York Times article,...

Shearwater, by Khiem Tran

Some years ago khiemtran documented his adventures learning to sail, and after that, his adventures restoring a Mirror dinghy and the trips he and his son took aboard it. It was fabulous--I really felt like I was learning to sail, reading those entries.

Later, he drew on those experiences to write a short novel for young people: Shearwater, which he's now published. In Shearwater ten-year-old Andy and thirteen-year-old Priya help Andy's Uncle Phil restore a Mirror, and Uncle Phil teaches them to ...

evanescent

I like how she fades away. As I said last entry, it's fan art for Tasha Suri's The Jasmine Throne, but it works for what I was aiming for with the end of Lagoonfire, too.


After one rain...



After two



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