Spring News

The field guide is here!

Order your copy today! http://hotfromthetoaster.com/fieldguide.html

Also, for those of your in the Northern CA area, the spring show I curate at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History will open on April 7th and run through June 3, 2012. Three of my pieces will be in the show - one from the field guide and two from the upcoming illustrated ocean-mythology poetry collection Leviathon. Check it out! http://www.santacruzmuseums.org/ I will be doing the Live Art Demo on Friday, May 4, 2012 from 5-8pm. My turtle, Cheesebox, will be there to model for us all.

I will also be participating in East Bay Open Studios again this year, June 2-3 & 9-10. Come by if you can. I'll have field guides and hopefully poetry books to sell and sign.  Last year's directory link (all the info is the same, except the dates) http://db.proartsgallery.org/ebosGallery_11.php?iconNumber=321

new heroes, book reviews, and some random fish

I think I've found a new hero, and in a fairly unlikely place. Not at the comic book shop, or on some link posted on Facebook, but in the pages of the journal Evolutionary Anthropology. I realize that this is nerdy even for me.

I read a lot of book reviews. The ones at the back of academic journals are often stiff and dull.  Scope and intended audience trump all else. There is a level of extreme formal impartiality that does not make for easy reading. It is as if the reviewers are trying not to have opinions - which is ridiculous. A book review is an opinion. I understand the need to be professional, but to take emotion and personality out of it is a disservice to the readers. 

Last week, in the midst of such starched politeness, I read a review that made me laugh so much I nearly fell off my chair.   

 "This book is, without doubt, the most shallow, poorly written, and deliberately insulting pieces of work I have ever read by a fellow academic." 

Other highlights:

•  "In it, you will learn nothing new about the topic .... You will, however, learn much about the likes, dislikes, history, and lifestyle of the author, as well as get to read a bunch of her email!"
• " While I cannot believe that this book was peer reviewed, it appears also to have missed the copy-editing stage."

The review is replete with footnotes and specifics. The title alone was appealing enough to make me curious about the book. Now I know I need never buy it. So, thank you, Dr. Bray for your wonderful review. You are my new book review hero. 

You know it must have happened....

....and then the day got better.

Good things come in odd packages.  This one arrived with the best stamps! Look!

Inside was one of the prettiest, hand-made journals I've ever seen. Thanks, PickyPockets! 

Isn't it pretty?!? I thrill to think of the drawings that will fill this one up.... Stay Tuned True Believers!

Crappy way to start the day

About 3 or 4 years ago, I put together a goofy bonsai - ceramic skull, pomegranate tree, some little Sedums. I watered it last night (though the Sedums died off a while back). This morning when I opened up the door to take the girls to school it was gone. Sigh. I'm mad and sad and all those things. Mostly sad. That plant was my friend. I talked to it every day. And now it is gone.  

New Illustration!

Check out this new blog post from Tasha Bergson-Michelson on How to Choose the Right Words for Best Search Results featuring one of my illustrations!

Obsession, office supplies and the library service desk.

The library where I work is moving from temporary quarters into the newly renovated building. This is as good a time as any to stop, reflect and reassess services. I don't mean the big ones that involve furniture, or computers or giant budgets. It is almost too late in the game to change those and, quite frankly, out of my control. No, let's take a quick look at some of the odd services we offer at the reference desk, the ones that make me feel like I work in an office supply store.

Photo © Katura Reynolds. Taken at The Evergreen State University Library in Olympia, WA

I will not lie. I love office supplies. Fresh reams of paper, new pencils to sharpen, Post-it notes in fun colors and shapes. I love the story behind Post-it notes - a manufacturing mistake turned into profit. I love knowing that Liquid Paper was invented by the mother of Michael Nesmith, from the Monkees.

But do we really need to have so many office supplies available for students? Paper clips, scissors, highlighters, tape, 3-hole punches. Without scissors, our service desk would never have had to create the "use it here at the reference desk" rule, established to keep community users from using said scissors to cut their hair or toe nails in the bathroom.

Some days the *only* questions I get are about office supplies. Can I borrow a pencil? A pen? Do we have folders? Is there tape? In these days of service trainings, should we have specialized session on how to politely tell a student they may have 1-3 paper clips, but 25 is asking too much?

Some of you are nodding your heads or rolling your eyes. Here, for any doubters who are still reading, is a visual example. I got obsessed the other day with staplers at the service desk, specifically how many different kinds seemed to be available.

Exhibit 1: manual operated staplers. Why do we need so many different types? Is the ref desk the final dumping ground? How many of these are unjammed at any given moment?

Exhibit 2: electric staplers. While there is only one style of electric stapler, there are 2 available for use. They don't look like staplers, students walk right past them, and quite frankly the noise and speed of the punch are a little frightening. Should we still keep the manual staplers in case of a power outage?

Exhibit 3: heavy duty staplers that punch through 50+ pages. So abused by the public they are kept behind the desk and must be specifically requested. So why do we need three?

Appendix: inevitably, once you share your obsessions, people will continue to bring you things they find at the back of cabinets well after you have run out of paper in your sketch book and you are forced to draw on the fly leaf.

a window of opportunity

I was sideways surfing the other day (following a link to a blog from a link to a blog from a G+ posting of an author I follow but have never spoken to..) and came across a letter writing challenge from the author, Mary Robinette Kowal. With February being the shortest month, she proposes writing one letter/postcard per day as a different way of approaching writing. "Hoorah for snail mail!!," I say. I love getting letters or cards or anything really to break up the monotony of bills and solicitations. Funny thing is you have to send mail to get mail. I am 4 days behind on the challenge. However, I'm working at the library reference desk on a Sunday while the students sleep in - plenty of time to write to folks! 

Let me know if you want to be on my short list of recipients!