Nattering Chatter: Addresses

Here are a couple addresses to pay attention to.

First is another blog: http://www.jerbeck23.blogspot.com/. If you like Nattering Chatter, you'll like this, I think. I confess my feathers twitched a bit when I realized that jerbeck23 has nothing to do with the actual name of the blog, which is The Un-aimed Arrow (and I'm not even going to think about that lower-cased "aimed") ... until it came to my abashed attention that, ah, bien50 is completely unrelated to Nattering Chatter. The thing is, hypocrisy is a gift and, like any other gift ... use it or lose it.

Another important address is: www.myspace.com/theunrealartistsgallery This is where fellow car artist Paulette Perlman, owner of The MermaidMobile, tells us that she's going to the inauguration. I don't have any details, except that she was told about it Saturday and has to be in Washington, at a gathering of artists, by Tuesday from the Florida Panhandle. She didn't have a chance to save up money for that -- and you know she's a starving artist -- so she's asking for donations, in return for which, you'll get an original Artist Trading Card (ATC). Send donations to her at 839 Oak Avenue, Panama City, FL 32401.

Find out about ATCs at www.cedarseed.com/air/atc.html

I didn't know what they are but now I do, and they sound very interesting indeed.

While I'm at it, is anyone out there interesting in starting a writers' group with Liz and me? I want to improve my writing, which means (at the very least) I'll want some knowledgeable critique from people who also read and write. Let me know. Hey! let's add another address -- my email address -- on the exceedingly off-chance you don't have it: bien50@gmail.com

It turns out that you can view my Profile and go to all the blogs I follow.

The Wednesday Midday Market has taken down its banner and skulked off into defunctation, but tomorrow I'll be sending out my application to be at the Ybor City Saturday Market. My instinct is to write the fat check for the entire quarter, which puts the price at $7.50 per week instead of $20. Even I can see the discount in that, even with three weeks already missed. But she who learns not from her mistakes is bound by unseen forces to repeat them, so I'll send them a check for twenty bucks. It sounds as if I can't even park my car close to my canopy for unloading and loading ... and I don't have a hand truck ... so I want to see what it's really like before I write the big check.

See? The Wagon Wheel experience wasn't a total loss!

I'm still turning the 1014 pages of Ken Follet's World Without End. I got it for Christmas 2007 and just finally started reading it last week. It's a page-turner, which is wonderful. It's an historical novel. Our hero is returning to England after seven years in Florence: He had a small notebook made of paper, a new writing material popular in Italy. I love that stuff!

Well, I love paper. Always have. That was one of many thrills of September: starting school with fresh notebooks. Yay! I have no doubt that I'll own a Kindle sooner or later -- one a them there eelektronic book-readin' machines -- but I'll still always have books to fondle. Follet's book is so heavy, especially since I'm usually nearly prone while I read, but the pages are really smooth and lovely, so it's worth it.

An historical novel is supposed to be correct in its details of circumstances if not actual conversations and characters. This way, we can learn while we are entertained. But it's still fiction, and that's tough. One of my very favorite books (not an historical novel) is The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty. In it, he mentions -- four or five times -- a book our hero is reading. I google the title. Nothing. The author. Nothing. I finally write to McLarty himself, to praise him, beg for a photo (which he sent me!), and ask where I can get the book his character was reading. The character gained a lot by reading the book, you see, and it sounded so interesting.

Yah, well ... it's fiction. The author made it up. That seems incredibly ballsy to me, and almost illegal, and certainly admirable.

What else? Oh. The book report. On January 12, I finished Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer. Yes. I confess. It's the third of four Young Adult vampire werewolf human (?) romances. There are, in fact, heaving breasts and smoldering glances, and I'm eating it right up. These are hefty books, too: 639 pages of pouting and longing. I put the query up there at human because I suspect Bella, the heroine, is a bit more than human. I won't know till I finish #4.

Bella is only eighteen, yet her breasts heave. I believe I was older before there was any heaving going on, and now I may have hove my last.

Meyer has written an adult book, which I also own. I suppose it'll be a romance, too, only instead of merely panting and longing, there'll be some consummating going on. I'll let you know.

Here's another address. http://www.studio620.org/620/e_avp.php

I painted a chair which will be sold (won't it?) to help support Alternative Visions of Peace at the Studio @ 620 this Sunday, January 25, from three to six. Really, check out the site. There are a lot of free things going on, and each chair is only twenty-five bucks, whether it was made by a Real Artist or not, and some of these people are famous.