How to get Married... review in the New York Times

“HOW TO GET MARRIED — BY ME, THE BRIDE.” By Sally Lloyd-Jones. Illustrated by Sue Heap Schwartz & Wade. $16.99. (Ages 4 to 8) The in-charge voice here will be recognizable to fans of “How to Be a Baby — by Me, the Big Sister.” The sage advice is wittily illustrated (“You can marry someone who is just like you, or someone who isn’t” goes with a picture of Baby Brother admiring himself in the mirror) and full of ideas for playing wedding make-believe, involving cake, presents and pets. Read review here.

someone's shoes

(Photo: someone and his shoes. He was hiding and just his shoes were showing.) (Photo credit: I don't know, can't remember, sorry)

the serious business of comedy

Dario Fo, born in San Giano, Italy (1926), who wrote The Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970) and won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1997 said: "With comedy I can search for the profound." Comedy is a very serious business. It's hard to be funny. But you can't make it look hard or it stops being funny. (And you certainly can't be taking yourself too seriously either.) Maybe that's why comedy is so under-rated. You get them laughing, lower their defences, before you hit them with something deep. But they mustn't see it coming or it won't work. Sometimes when you're writing you don't see it coming either. It's only later that you discover there's something profound in it. Then everyone's defences are down. Yours and the readers. (Maybe that's the way it works best?) As someone once put it: one minute you're laughing; the next you're thinking.

fill the woods with song

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those who sang best." ~ Henry Van Dyke (1852 - 1933)

west african teddies

Doesn't someone need to rescue all of these toys? Very cool photo essay by Glenna Gordon. Stuffed toys for sale in Monrovia, Liberia--furry frogs, bunnies, dogs, bears, blue elephants--and all of them teddies. More here.

Thinking to a story's conclusion

"A story has been thought to its conclusion when it has taken its worst possible turn." Friedrich Durrenmatt (1921-1990) Reminds me of that old tip on structuring stories: a/put your character up a tree b/throw stones at him c/get him down again

David Suchet reading The Jesus Storybook Bible

Here (drum roll) is the very first sample of David Suchet reading from THE JESUS STORYBOOK BIBLE. You're hearing it way ahead of everyone else! Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Listen here. I even got to actually meet him when he recorded it in April, in a studio in London. He is the most lovely, humble man. And a genius at what he does. He made it look easy which is a sure sign, as with anything, that not only is it quite the opposite, but you're in the presence of a master. (Yes, Me and Poirot! BTW: that's a fat suit he wears on Poirot and his actual voice--as you'll see when you listen--is several octaves lower than Hercule Poirot--plus he doesn't have a mustache or an accent.) (well unless you count a British one, which I don't, having got one of them myself--accent not mustache--and as you know, if it's yours, then it's not an accent it's just how you speak and everyone else are the ones with the accent.)

ibirds...

the app for iphone: iBird Explorer. this alone makes you want an iphone doesn't it? (I've resisted it ... so far.) Here's a photo of the inventor playing sounds from it to attract birds to his feeder in his garden. In Feb, he got a call from Apple's legal dept. He thought he was about to be sued. Instead, he was being chosen out of thousands to be reatured in a tv commercial. “In many ways, developing a program is like writing a book. You say, ‘I’m going to make something first of all that I like. Then I’ll worry about how to make money.’ ” Jeffrey Tarter, founding editor of a developers’ newsletter, Softletter. Great advice. More here.