…that we will be closing the MIEL shop from July 1 until September 1, so if you’d like to get your hands on something, now’s the time! Any orders that come in after July 1 will be filled and shipped during the first week of September.
We’ll be updating this space as usual while the shop is closed, and when we’re back in September we’ll launch a new chapbook and tell you about the results of our 2013 reading period.
Findings, file under Supplies for Readers & Writers:
Techniques for combining typefaces, from H&FJ.
Buntmal makes elegant, simple, bright-colored notebooks and other writing supplies.
You can get some pencils made to order with words of your choice on them. What about “stop checking your email”? Or maybe “write the damn novel, already”?
Findings, file under Objects:
Google’s Maurice Sendak Doodle.
Yoriko Youda’s workbook: daily drawings, now almost 1800 of them. Via Pikaland.
Monet’s Table: The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet.
Findings, file under Movement:
A signboard for a candy shop in Japan.
Occupy Gezi, on Pinterest.
Findings, file under Publishing:
The Gigantic Sequins contests in fiction & poetry are on, and we’ve sent a package of MIEL books and stationery for each of the winners. There are other prizes, too! Check it out and submit.
VQR is open for submissions until August 31.
Seren is reading (hard copy) manuscripts.
Of course, we’d love to see your work for 111O/6 (broadsides issue) or for our open reading period. Information on both is here.
Findings, file under Print:
The Hannah Arendt Papers in the (US) Library of Congress.
“In a U-Haul, North of Damascus“, by David Bottoms.
It’s been a long time since I’ve sung a national anthem in a big crowd—possibly even a couple decades. Not being a follower of sports, I don’t go to many games, and there aren’t a lot of other events that involve the singing of anthems—which is too bad really because it’s sort of spectacular to sing something along with thousands of others. That’s exactly what I did just a few days ago in London. My husband and I were visiting with his parents there, and they took us to my first football match (soccer, to my fellow Americans) at Wembley Stadium, an international friendly between England and the Republic of Ireland. I wanted to feel like a true fan, so in addition to brushing up on a few football facts, donning red for England, and drinking my share of beer, I looked up the British National Anthem and memorized the words to “God Save the Queen.” I’d forgotten that it’s the same tune I learned years ago in grade school—Americans will recognize it as “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” I hadn’t thought about those classroom days for I don’t know how long—it seemed like we were always singing something together in big groups then, our chorus of chirping wobbly but gleeful and loud. That was before we all grew up and broke off into our own private orbits, told to be unique, to stand out, to be an original, to be different from everyone else. (If you grew up to be a writer, you got double and treble doses of that message). But Wednesday night at Wembley, I rebelled. I was merely one of so many and many, all dressed alike, all sitting in the same section, all with the same hopes for the next 90 minutes, all singing along to the same tune. It was marvelous to be so invisible and yet still feel accepted and embraced, to feel that I belonged.
P.S.
The video of the singing crowd at Wembley isn’t from the night I went—I was too caught up in the moment then to think of recording—but I wanted to give you a sense of what it was like.
P.P.S.
Only the first verse of “God Save the Queen” is usually sung (though several times throughout the game). But, I love the bit in the second verse about confounding politics and frustrating knavish tricks!
P.P.P.S
It’s interesting that on the official website of the British Monarchy, they don’t include that second verse.
P.P.P.S.
I have been known to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” (the national anthem of the United States) at full volume while driving by myself at night. I always wondered why I liked to do that. It’s only now that I think maybe it’s because it helped me feel not so alone even while I was enjoying being alone.
Findings, file under Objects:
Imagining a shop we’d want to discover in a winding street in a little town we’re visiting, this list of things we like—to fill the imagined shop:
This monograph by William Kentridge.
And this video, which you can also buy (but which isn’t viewable outside the US online).
These paperclips, which are really just too much but still.
These hedgehog beads (all her work is lovely).
This scarf.
Basically everything she makes.
…someday. And you will visit us (won’t you?), and we will serve you tea or coffee and cookies and cakes, and sit at the table together as the early dark begins, while flowers or pine boughs scent the room, and we will go out together into the evening!
Happy Friday.
Findings, file under Books:
You still have a few days to take advantage of our discount on Lisa Solomon‘s Hand/Made. Use the code ‘HANDMADE613′ at checkout to receive 25% off.
Super interesting essay on the appropriation and misattribution of both quotations and sentiment, when it comes to famous writers. (Hat-tip to Steve Himmer for the link.) File also under the heading “Shakespeare did not say ‘after the rain there’s always a rainbow!’”.
“Sail On, My Little Honeybee“—another essay worth the time it takes to read. Beautiful. If you have something like this, send it. We want to publish it.
Findings, file under Supplies for Readers & Writers:
W.G. (‘Max’) Sebald’s writing tips. I first came across these in Five Dials. I want to hoard them.
Poor Claudia is open for submissions in June. You can buy their books anytime.
“Unsolicited Advice for Living in the End Times“, in The New Inquiry.
