I was window shopping on ebay for beautiful, house appropriate goodies. I don’t have room or purpose for these, but aren’t they just darling?!
Posts authored by leems
Giallo Meltdown
Richard and I are racing. His book: Giallo Meltdown: A Moviethon Diary is now available for sale on Amazon. I drew that cover ya’ll!
If you haven’t wandered over to DoomedMoviethon.com and tasted his literary stylings then, do! do! Richard’s writing is engaging and witty. It will pull you in, make you giggle, and embarrass you at the bus stop where people will gawk at you both for reading (who does that anymore) and for openly enjoying yourself in public. I say this because it’s true, not because I’m biased in any way.
Baba Yaga and her izbushka
It’s no surprise that I am enamored of the witch. I have drawn her in all her incarnations, back to her most powerful mothers. I have studied her, gorging myself on sociological studies of the ‘child stealers,’ and the female trinity. Yet, I haven’t written much about her, so here is my first look at the witch. As much as the internet is great, it is also not always the best place to get substantive information on ancient things. There are plenty of sites regurgitating the same information and descriptions of Baba Yaga (Wikipedia) with reference to the folktales that originally sketched her visage and character. I needed to be sure; I looked for those folktales, the most famous of which is Russian Fairy Tales from the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library, by Aleksandr Afanasev, translated by Norbert Guterman and illustrated b Alexander Alexeieff. It just happened to live on the shelf of my personally library, a relic of my childhood (I spilled milk on it when I was six or so).
Baba Yaga the boney legged, or, in one story, the golden legged, is one of three sisters. She has three daughters, sometimes beautiful and sometimes deformed. She has claws and a nose that hits the ceiling of her ‘little hut’ where she often lies stretched from corner to corner. She is sometimes helpful to youth on a quest, mostly devious towards young women, and often devising ways to eat her visitors. She sharpens or ‘whets’ her teeth for these chow downs and can gnaw through whole forests. Her ambiguous intentions to people make her stand out in folklore where characters are usually only evil or only good (Johns, 1998).
Baba Yaga has servants; sometimes these are youth who take on temporary servitude in order to get something from her, and sometimes these are maids who have been given to her for some other favor. She commands oxen, eagles, and magical mares. And her primary, if not only, mode of transportation is folded up in a mortar which she goads along though the sky with a pestle and sweeps her tracks away with a broom. I have not yet figured out how she could fly in such a thing and still need to sweep her tracks away, though these tools also allude to other, older, things like the potions ancient wise women mixed up, winter winds, and a the sweeping of the oven after eating (Cooper, 1997). Like many evil spirits, Baba Yaga is driven to count things and cannot cross a river or other running water.
Merman
Professional Publication
Are you hankering for a good read on the resource sharing trends in Latin American libraries? Well, look no further; I just got one such article published and I’m giving you (at least the first 50 of you) a free copy:
Penelope Sea in print
Two format options of Penelope Sea and Ocean End available on Amazon. Buy the print and get the Kindle edition free!
▶ The Andrews Sisters – Rancho Pillow (1941) – YouTube
Penelope Sea and Ocean End
It’s all true. Penelope Sea and Ocean End will be sold through Amazon, published by me. The Kindle edition is out now! A print edition is on its way. Once it is out, if you buy the print edition you can get the Kindle edition for free. You have so many options!
Etsy awesomes
Olivia M of Paradox Now Creations initiated a zine trade with me; my first ever! I am so glad she did, and that a few days later Dark Light, Ailenn and Mark, and In Veritas Lost were waiting in my mailbox.
I just finished reading In Veritas Lost. I am really impressed in how Olivia developed the idea of being lost in truth. The prose is mostly stream of consciousness, but maintains the tension of the story by routinely returning to comment on the action and environment. Olivia says that she originally sought to write a “post-apocalyptic dystopian Great Gatsby with lesbians” and that it developed its own direction. Elements of the original idea abound and are very well handled. It is post-apocalyptic dystopian without falling prey to the more typical depictions of such a world. It is also highly descriptive and poetic without falling prey to a confusing mass of floral adjectives.
Your book shelves could use this story, so you should check out Olivia’s shop via the links above.
Doodling
Something a little different
Because every now and then you need rainbow farting ponies.
Proof of pineapple
I finally have definitive proof the humongous spiky plants we moved in the back yard are actually pineapples!
Chromolithography and the mystery of Henri and Anita LeRoy
It all started with a print called “Spirited Horses” 
on my dining room wall. I had inherited it from my grandmother. I remember sleeplessly looking up at it on the wall of her den during ‘nap time.’ A notation on the bottom says it was copyright in 1900 by Jos. Hoover & Sons. The signature reads ‘LeRoy’ with a circular flourish around it.
Then I saw the same picture in a magazine spread of an interior designer’s home and I was so captured by coincidence that I found out all I could on the artist and wrote a short post on my blog: Vintage Prints and Small Worlds.
At that point in time, I found that the print was attributed to a Henri LeRoy (1851-), still life painter in France. I have since found that the true artistry of Spirited Horses is much more convoluted.
A dealer on an auction site had a 1904 edition of Spirited Horses that lists it as a no. 2 in a series of images. While researching his find, he found from a discussion list (no longer active) that Spirited Horses no. 2 was part of 4 companion images. No. 4 in this series apparently shows the horses dead. These images were attributed to Anita LeRoy, signing simply as LeRoy. On yet another auction site, a dealer with a 1908 edition of Spirited Horses #2, spots it in the movie A Christmas Story in the scene where the leg lamp breaks.
I hate to say it, but all my researching didn’t turn up any definitive answer on whether Henri or Anita was the author Spirited Horses, or the many other prints that came out of Jos. Hoover & Sons printing with signatures like:
Continue reading Chromolithography and the mystery of Henri and Anita LeRoy
Mark Twain stories, 150 years old, uncovered by Berkeley scholars | Books | The Guardian
Mark Twain stories, 150 years old, uncovered by Berkeley scholars | Books | The Guardian published on Read more posts by the author of Mark Twain stories, 150 years old, uncovered by Berkeley scholars | Books | The Guardian, leemsNo Comments on Mark Twain stories, 150 years old, uncovered by Berkeley scholars | Books | The Guardian
Cache shows Twain working as a newspaper man in San Francisco. As a young man at the Berkeley archivists describe, the stash is ‘like opening up a big box of candy.’
Source: Mark Twain stories, 150 years old, uncovered by Berkeley scholars | Books | The Guardian
Are you excited? Mark Twain’s short stories, essays, and satirical pieces are what I love about him, and now…there are more!
Patterns
I made a couple of new patterns with my tattoo designs. And, while reorganizing my files, I found a pattern I had never posted or used. I really love how this one turns out when on repeat. After some refining, they will be available at my shop on Spoonflower.
