Gilded Cages- On Fitzgerald- Quotes from the Great Gatsby

I have revisited my high school curriculum and reread Fitzgerald's third book, seen the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby with Mia Farrow and today's (in theaters now) Great Gatsby version. With the relevancy to today's economic world, and my own struggles pursuing the 'Daisy'-lined streets of the American Dream... I'm enraptured with Nick Caraway's observant inside/outside character, I can honestly say I am enthralled in Fitzgerald's vision. So I thought I would share a trip down my literary lane with just some of my favorite quotes from each chapter of the book.

This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name "creative temperament" - It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which is not likely I shall ever find again. No- Gatsby turned out alright at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 1

photo by m.diaz Bergdof Goodman's Holiday Window

Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 2

The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breadth; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp joyous moment the center of a group, and then excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 3

"Anyhow, he gives large parties," said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. "And I like large parties. They're so intimate . At small parties there isn't any privacy."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 3

Bison head detail by M.Diaz

The tears coursed down her cheeks- not freely, however,for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 3

A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds, and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of southeastern Europe and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their somber holiday.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 4

Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young, rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn't drink. It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is blind that they don't see or care.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 4

Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeful splendor.

He wants to know, continued Jordan, "If you'll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over."

The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths- so that he could 'come-over' some afternoon to a strangers garden.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 4

Scrapyard Trumpet photo by M.Diaz

A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 4

We passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the facade of Fifty-ninth street, a block of delicate pale light, beamed down into the park.,

Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs...

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 4

The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone, before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 5

He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 5

...not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 5

self-portrait detail by m.diaz

But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 6

It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 6

But what had amused me then turned septic on the air now.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 6

-appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 6

...some authentically radiant young girl who with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 6

Bergdorf Goodman Holiday Window photo by m.diaz

So the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 7

...and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 7

...but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself- that he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilities- he had no comfortable family standing behind him, and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to be blown anywhere about the world.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 7

There was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy's letters. She didn't see why he couldn't come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.

For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes....At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor.

...And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately- and the decision must be made by some force - of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality-

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 8

He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 8

On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 9

"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead," he suggested. "After that my only rule is to let everything alone."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 9

...the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....and one fine morning-

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Chapter 9

new Art House Moleskine Sketchbook

My embellished Moleskine sketchbook Cover by m.diaz sketchbook spread by m. diaz spread detail shot inside cover by m.diaz another spread by m.diaz

Doing Nothing, Disconnecting and Why it's Important (Just in Time For Summer)

"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen."- Leonardo DaVinci

The Sweetness of Doing Nothing by m.diaz

Not so long ago, I was not me. I was instead an inanimate object. To be clear, I was a rubber-band. I was stretched so thin from being pulled in so many directions that I was bound to snap, and I did. I snapped right in the face of some folks that I care deeply about. Folks who didn't even have a hand in stretching me to begin with, but unfortunately, they were close enough to feel my whiplash.

Now sometimes being stretched that thin is an aid in productivity. I successfully argue that point at every moment in which I accept a new task. In fact, I've just pitched the, "No Worries, I work better under pressure" tagline to myself and my co-workers, friends and students earlier today.

Come on lets face it, I have a superhero complex, ever since I saw that star-studded Chicana, Lynda Carter spin her brunette head into the Wonder Woman of my dreams.

So I'm super capable and yes I can, I can do it all... sound familiar??
But what I've been learning as I get older is not to ask, "Can I?", (because I probably can, but at what cost?) instead I need to ask, "Should I?"

So in lieu of this global race against time, productivity and efficiency, many of us have grown digital appendages that allow us to redefine multi-tasking: cell & smart phones, laptops, ipads, portable hotspots, apps, etc.

As a result, these appendages have become indispensable, and have us 'connected' indefinitely. Personally, if you ask me, the very thought of misplacing my iphone brings cold-sweats, chills and dizziness to mind instantaneously as though it equated a lost limb.

In the New York Times bestseller, Hamlet's Blackberry, William Powers does an astute job of reminding us that the goal of all of our highly efficient technological advances was to gain us more time. It is the 'spaces, gaps, the respites,and stopping places for the mind' that we gain from our ultra-efficiency that we are somehow losing. Despite all of our hyper-connectivity, we are less connected to authentic humanity by constantly being wired to a virtual one.

First I would like to define rest by including anything that alleviates action and restores absorption of the mental, physical, emotional and/or spiritual kind. If you’re like me, you’ll stress about making it to Yoga class on time, and well, that's just not ok.

Somehow we are all hearing ourselves say WE USED to have A LOT more time...

Now seeing as we now have all of these hyper-connective tools that allow us to do multiple tasks at once, we should have MORE time. Yet, instead if you're like me, you're most likely giving all that new found time away. Possibly that new time is being given away to being 'ON' and available in our digital personas/virtual worlds 24/7. If that's the case, well then I think it might be time to reassess our priorities.

Thoreau said that the man that goes back to the post office (substitute email in-box here) over and over is a man who hasn't heard from himself in a long while.

- From Hamlet's Blackberry

So why are these pauses, GAPS of Absorption and PROCESS, these 'moments' or if we dare, DAYS of rest in our busy lives so important?

Well we've all heard the cliché answers: relieving stress, recharging your battery, richer connection and self-reflection. These are indeed vital and incredibly important in gaining the depth/richness and quality of experience we need out of our daily lives (instead of being automatons of brainless routines).
But lets look at some of the rich reasons that I gleaned from Hamlet's Blackberry...

Creativity is defined by the ability to make mental associations ....

" When work is all about darting around screens, we're not doing something thats even more valuable than thinking quickly: thinking creatively.

Of the minds many aptitudes, the most remarkable is its power of association, the ability to see new relationships among things. The brain is the most amazing associative device ever created, with its roughly one hundred billion neurons connected in as many as a quadrillion different ways- more connections than there are stars in the known universe.

Digital devices are, in one sense, a tremendous gift to the associative process because they link us to so many sources of information. The potential they hold out for creative insights and synthesis is breathtaking. The best human creativity, however, happens only when we have the time and mental space to take a new thought and follow it wherever it leads. William James once contrasted 'the sustained attention of the genius, sticking to his subject for hours together,' with the 'commonplace mind' that flits from place to place. geniuses are rare, but by using screens as we do now, constantly jumping around we're ensuring that all of us have fewer ingenious moments and bring less associative creativity to whatever kind of work we do."

- William Powers From Hamlet's Blackberry

In working out and toning your body, muscles need states of strict rest in order to grow and develop. As an educator it is established that in order to learn we need to time to process. Within inter-personal relationships we need time for reflection. As humans we live dichotomously between an inward and outward states and that condition should be balanced. I personally feel we lose control when we do anything in excess and the only true form of satisfaction comes in a perpetual balanced state of moderation. It is how I have come to champion my body this year.

William Powers doesn't advocate disconnect and be a ludite. He advocates the notion that we need to learn to control the aspects of our lives that are controlling us- he advocates moderation and mitigation between you and the technologies that are inhibiting your ability to live a high quality, present, attentive and fully immersed experience of a life- learn when to turn your ON 'green' button OFF in order to truly be ON.

He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities. - Benjamin Franklin

So if I haven't convinced you yet to take a reading gander with Hamlet's Blackberry, let me add some previews of what's in store.
Powers takes on the challenging task of reviewing the philosophies of seven great thinkers throughout human history. He applies their thinking of what had once been the new technologies of their time and the concept of connectivity to today's surge of overwhelming digital data.
You might think this is a far reach, but I found it pleasantly surprising to see how relevant and applicable: Plato's notion of 'distance' is, Seneca's concept of Inner space, Gutenberg's manufacturing brilliance with technologies of Inwardness, Shakespeare's idea that old tools can ease overload, Ben Franklin's adaptation of positive rituals, Thoreau's Walden zones, McLuhan's lowering of the Inner thermostat and William Power's Internet Sabbath. These ideas can apply to you and me and help us moderate our on 24/7 consumption of digital juice.

Finally, if these thoughts don't stimulate your desire to ignite your spatial, tactile and physical awareness with the reality around you, here are some tech-saavy reasons that are not meant to be comical (though they may sound it) to self-moderate your digital connections.

TAKE YOUR REST AND LEARN TO SAY NO & shut off & time out & DISCONNECT every once in a while so you don't get things like:

• INFORMATION OVERLOAD estimated to be responsible for economic losses (lowered productivity and throttled innovation) of 900billion dollars a year *(result of a 2009 study done by Basex a leading research firm)

• ATTENTION DEFICIT TRAIT (ADT) symptoms include distractability, restlessness, a sense of gotta go gotta rush, gotta run around and impulsive decision making because you have so many things to do

• CONTINUOUS PARTIAL ATTENTION defined as the state of mind in which most of ones attention is on a primary task, but where one is also monitoring several background tasks just in case something more important or interesting comes up

• EMAIL APNEA a form of shallow breathing while checking email that in some extreme cases leads to an increase in stress related disease

• INTERNET ADDICTION DISORDER self-explanatory damage...

• NOMOPHOBIA Fear of being without mobile phone contact

Next, plan your day of rest. It can be any day of the week. Planning is essential to progress. Carve out time and you’ll commit. Practice turning down events, errands, chores, things you don’t truly need to get done under the gun. Plan meals in advance, turn off the iPhone, disconnect your computer, and stick your car keys in a drawer. Instead of being a slave to time, create it by accepting downtime. By taking time out, you’ll have more in the end.

My Little RED Valentines Day- For the Love of the Beast Within Me and His Long Unruly Fur...

Figure 10. Kiki Smith. Rapture Bronze ©Kiki Smith, Photo By: Richard-Max Tremblay/Courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York

For this year's valentine's day post, I want to share a passion that I have that has been ensconced within my work (see my illustrations) and thoughts for quite a while...our animal human divide, my animal instincts or how some academics prefer to call it our primitive brains.

my pendant by Poodlebreath

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."- Mary Oliver

Actually for close to a decade now; I have seen the relinquishing of reason and justification in order to appease my deepest desires as a manifestation of my animal self. My ability or lack there of to reign in my instinctual desires to me is a reflection of seeing the beast (my true self) within me and allowing it to surface as a reflection of who I truly am. I also see our animal selves as the intercessor between the sacred nature of the environment and our regard for it.

My Wolf ring by Raven Designs

"...animals and humans respond physiologically to traumatic experiences and how our ‘animal body’ naturally responds to a threatening situation regardless of what our rational mind may think.
The nervous system’s response to danger is ‘hardwired’ in the reptilian (instinctual) and mammalian limbic (emotional) parts of our brain that we share with other animals. A threatened human or animal must discharge the adrenaline mobilized to negotiate danger, for example by shaking or trembling, or it will succumb to trauma as the residual energy persists in the body creating a variety of unpleasant symptoms.
While animals instinctively discharge this energy, humans are less adept at this and when confronted with a life threatening situation, our rational brains may become confused and override our instinctive impulses.

Levine(From Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine)... explaining that while our highly evolved neo-cortex (rational brain) cannot override the fight, flight or freeze response to danger, it allows an overcontrol which interferes with the instinctual responses generated by our older (evolutionarily) reptilian brain that are necessary for return to normal functioning..."

- Reclaiming our Animal Body Author: Tania Dolley

The Grimm fairytale that opens the window into this duality for me is Little Red Riding hood...

However, I see this tale as a preamble/ an introduction to a more interesting question, story and character, the girl who emerges saved from the belly of the wolf...that is who I am interested in.

In her 2002 study Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, Catherine Orenstein claims that the tale “embodies complex and fundamental human concerns”

"[Red Riding Hood’s] tale speaks to enduring themes of family, morality, growing up, growing old, of lighting out into the world, and of the relationships between the sexes.
It brings together archetypal opposites, through which it explores the boundaries of culture, class, and especially, what it means to be a man or a woman.
The girl and the wolf inhabit a place, call it the forest or call it the human psyche, where the spectrum of human sagas converges and where their social and cultural meanings play out."

- From UNCLOAKED a Little Red Ridinghood study by Catherine Orenstein

recent lil red work by me, m.diaz detail of lil red by m.diaz ink on wood

As far as I am concerned at the very end of this fairytale is just when I think it starts. The end of the tale is where my wonderment and fondness begins. With my overactive imagination, to me there is no better topic for a Valentines day post than the misnomer of traditional Little Red Ridinghood interpretations and seeing perhaps the 'all-consuming' love between a hunter and his prey the wolf and the girl/ girl and a beast/ and the transformative power of that love since she emerges not unscathed from the belly of the wolf, but surely a force to be reckoned with as she is reborn in a sense from this consumption...

Little Red Ridinghood Brothers Grimm Illustrated by Daniel Egneùs

I bought the book above (- beautifully illustrated) and the t-shirt below and now so can you! BUY IT! But let's just agree to not wear it on the same day in the same place :))

Score this design: "RED," to help it get printed on Threadless!

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Some of My NEW Favorite Things

I had a restful and great Sunday this past weekend, which is slightly rare. My best weekender experiences usually fall on a Saturday, the day of the week that I would normally call one of my favorite things, but not this time. So I declare that Sunday is making the also-one-of-my-fave-things list.

So this Sunday I woke up early enough to do some morning reading. I'm currently taking a reprieve from my usual cerebral, booky, mystery fiction and I'm reading something that reads rather quickly due to my pressed time schedule this month. Since I am determined to be an author/illustrator combo some day, I'm now reading a fun young-adult graphic novel WONDLA illustrated and written by the author of The Spiderwick Chronicles, Tony DiTerlizzi. Best of all, this book has a phenomenal interactive website and it was one of my surprise b'day gifts from my hub!

Then I got to brew a whole tea pot of some of my newest addiction TEAVANA Rooibos Cocoa Praline Tart tea The ultimate zero calorie, caffeine free sweet tooth satisfaction! Try Haute Chocolate tea too- ooh la la is all I gotta say! Teavana Cocoa Praline Tart Rooibos Tea And thanks to that husband of mine I got to enjoy that tea in another awesome Bday gift- check out my new porcelain tea thermos from TEAVANAMy new procelain thermos

This Sunday Morning we also had a delicious omelette, a gift from my ladies and my hub:

our eggs my handmade ipad case by me

I made major progress (though I'm still not finished) with a daunting sewing project that I wanted to tackle now for a while, a handmade case for my iPad. I wish I could have done a tutorial for you all, but I seriously had no idea what I was doing! I just made it all up along the way and struggled to boot, which is something I usually don't do as an autodidact, but hey I can't always be sunshine and roses!

span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable">latch open openPropped up for viewing

Lastly this is going to be a GREAT thanksgiving week because my ART children are coming home from college and I get to see those fresh eyed babes who hold such a special place in my heart!

- Ciao Amarettogirl

Announcing the Winner of the BEAUTIFUL YOU Giveaway

This was an incredibly difficult giveaway to select from! I wish I had seven books to give away ~.~

The good news is that I scored a visit to my school by Rosie Molinary on Oct. 26th from 12:30-1:30pm during which she will be doing a lunch time series presentation in our library -for girls, women, teachers, staff, parents and male allies at the Imperatore Library and she will have books available there!

So if you are affiliated with the Dwight-Englewood School in anyway try to be there!

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Ok so the top contenders addressed the audio interview with such conviction it made my heart smile everytime! Take a look at some of these comments:

1. Colin- "...the best part's when y'all are talking about process, and how it's destination vs. journey when really it's always just been about journey."

2. Luisa- "i loved the part where you talked about the toxins to your body that no one really mentions like gossip, and criticism. it reminded me of a scene from mean girls where they al look in the mirror and take turns saying something they don't like about their bodies. rituals like these seem to happen often and have become almost routine. the become addictive, you tend to keep going and going and you keep finding little things here and there, and when your friends join in its just a hate bash on our bodies..."

3. Carla- "I sooooooooo related to the struggle with people commenting on your weight loss and the discomfort around that. I actually wrote and performed a piece about that very thing years ago and it prompted me to find it. It's called 'Serenity'..."

   ...I mean someone will say, "You have such a beautiful face" and in the back of my head that little voice is translating it as "It's a shame your a little overweight, otherwise you'd be a knockout", "a knock out", yeah, a knockout"...

   -excerpt from Serenity by Carla
4. Jane- "I loved both your questions and Rosie's responses. The aspect that spoke most loudly to me was about her thoughts on straightening her hair - "to make her life easier." For nearly a decade, many years ago, I permed my hair "to make my life easier." How interesting that we saw doing opposite things to our hair was perceived necessary and a means to being more presentable than what is our own natural state..."

5. Laura- "...One topic that I can definitely apply to my own life is the section about not joining in when your friends decide to criticize themselves. This is something that I would never have thought about before because it seems like such a natural reaction. Now that I am more aware of it, I hope to not do it again."

6. Tania- "...I've a ton of opinions and thoughts on this subject especially as a woman of size who is ok with being of size who accepts herself fully. I'm the girl who does straighten her hair but I do it not for society or praise but because I like the way it looks on me, but I also embrace my curls..."

   And last but not least...

7. Gera- "Omg, this interview was so great and it really touched my heart. I definitely understand each and every one of Rosie's points and they were all eye-opening and just plain genius. I am a young woman (HS) who is totally aware this notion of image; however, I try my best to not let it get the best of me. I am a woman of size and am completely comfortable with my body. If I ever decide to change something, it'll be because I want it for myself and not because of other people's opinions. I can honestly say that I am so excited to read this book and I know I will love it just like I loved this interview!"

   So what is a blogger to do??

   Well I took a suggestion by my co-worker Caitlyn, and I placed the numbers 1-7 in the bingo machine and let the wheel of fortune take the decision right out of my hands!                               The winner is...drumroll please...wait for it...

   CONGRATS TO GERA!!!!!!

   The Poster For Rosie Molinary's Visit to the Dwight- Englewood School!

A Book Blog Tour - Rosie Molinary's New Book - Beautiful You A Daily Guide To Radical Self-Acceptance

Today I'm going to review the new book Beautiful You A Daily Guide To Radical Self-Acceptance by Rosie Molinary and published by Seal Press.

The subject descriptors listed on the back of this book read Psychology and Body Image. However, I think the descriptors could easily include 'Education' and 'Self Realization/Self-Emancipation'. These latter subjects may not be actual descriptors in the biz, but after reading this book, it can easily be classified/shelved in these areas as well.

For this review, I read this whole book from cover to cover and deprived myself from the thrill of using it as it was designed to be used: as a daily page turner revealing exercises that are there to; encourage, challenge, demystify, educate and improve/emancipate your patterns of thinking about beauty and self-perception.

In addition, I embarked on a new form of expression - podcasting!

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Rosie Molinary

This book is an action plan for a year of introspection. It will have you unveiling the external, often unattainable fictions about what you're supposed to look like. Rosie demystifies the source/origin of our contentment and satisfaction by having you actively engaged in realizing it is fully within your power; and within your strengths, passions and capabilities that your light will shine most beautifully. However, if you are a woman who is intelligently conscious of these truths it is still a different matter entirely to be ready, present and willing to do the deep hard work of the exercises.

Rosie successfully challenges our ability to look within ourselves with authentictity and integrity. Through a wide range of films to watch, authors /quotes to read, and anecdotal experiences, Rosie shepherds us through a labyrinth that leads to our core.

In addition, she challenges our sense of responsibility and accountability to our greater community- to our gender. By guiding us to serve as active mentors and members of the greater collective female consciousness, Rosie has us face what it is to be globally minded, working on behalf of others and developing a voice. Lastly, the educational merit of this book for educators and parents alike was mind-boggling to me. All of us at one point or another will be faced with modeling a behavior or guiding a younger generation and how we do that can be life-altering.

If you are ready and committed to the experince of this delightful book on day 345 you could be contemplating this,

...When I was teaching, I heard Gloria Steinem speak*. The auditorium was packed and as she began a small infant began to weep. The mother couldn't silence him, so she tried to discreetly sneak out of the auditorium, hoping, I am sure, not to bother the other audience members. "Don't go," Steinem said, interrupting her remarks. "We put up with so much noise in our lives- beepers and cell phones, sirens and car alarms. The least any of us can do is be patient with the sounds of child." That remark has stayed with me so many years later. I was impressed by Steinem's acknowledgement of the child's voice, the humanity she exhibited in noting his humanity, and the way she cut away from her prepared remarks to teach all of us a quiet and powerful lesson.

- excerpt from Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

*Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the Women's Liberation Movement in the late 1960s and 1970s.

*************************************************************

I was fortunate to score a phone interview with Rosie! I recorded that informative and eye-opening conversation and I know that you will just love to hear it while you go for a walk, commute or whateva! The podcast is located at the end of this post so PLEASE click on it and LISTEN to the interview.

Rosie will have you begin your journey on day 2 by signing a contract with yourself. This thirteen point pledge of allegiance is dynamic and severely truncated here in this excerpt, but it will give you a three point taste:

The Body Warrior Pledge: Because I understand that my love and respect for my body are metaphors of my love and respect for my self and soul, I pledge:

• To stop berating my body and to begin celebrating the vessel that I have been given. I will remember the amazing things my body has given me: the ability to experience the world with the breadth of senses, the ability to perceive and express love, the ability to comfort and soothe, and the ability to fight, provide and care for humanity.

• To understand my body is an opportunity not a scapegoat.

• To be the primary source of my confidence. I will not rely on others to define my worth.

GIVEAWAY!HAVE 30min? WIN A FREE COPY OF BEAUTIFUL YOU: Listen to the podcast interview with Rosie and comment to this post with one aspect of the interview that spoke most loudly to your soul. This will be one step required to qualify. The next step to qualify for the giveaway is to go to Rosie's Facebook 'Beautiful You' Fan page and 'LIKE IT! letting her know Amarettogirl sent you ;)

You have until Friday Oct.15th Midnight Eastern Standard Time to submit your entry to win the book. HEY BTW! This is open to ANYONE ANYWHERE!

Though the podcast and the giveawy stay here, On Oct.13th this blog tour goes to: Imperfect Spirituality Follow it!

For those of us deliberately doing this kind of work there will undoubtedly be exercises you have done before and goals you may have already set for yourself. Yet that results in a wonderful sense of accomplishment and on those pages/exercises you can do what I did...draw a large smiley face on that page and write 'Did this!' Furthermore, trust me, there's no way you've done even more than an 20% of the creative and interdisciplinary exercises in this book which leaves you with 80% of a beautiful self yet to unveil!

PODCAST- Rosie Molinary Interview

Two New Inspiring Art Books

Hunt & Gather by Tina Ziegler NYCI bought these two books, Hunt & Gather and Illustration Now! Vol.3 as Birthday gifts for my hub and we LOVE them! They are VERY inspiring.

One thing I like to tell my students and remind myself of, is that we don't live in bubble. It is so great, if you are able, to go to galleries, contemporary museums and see publications of what is currently happening in the art world and have your pulse on what your contemporaries are toiling with.

I often think that (unless you live in Brooklyn) or other up and coming 'art' communities many of us creatives today live the opposite of Monet's Giverny, isolated.

Not really by Monet's choice, Giverny turned into thriving artist colony where writers, dancers, painters and creatives of the time collected to live, breathe and make around eachother. These two books help me feel connected and a part of something bigger in the art world that is still breathing and living.

Jason Jackeno featured in Hunt & Gather Tina Ziegler

This book has a beautiful coffee-table spread of images of new contemporary artists that work in a variety of styles.

This striking collection of surrealism, pop art, illustration, collage, graphic design and mixed media represents many of today's most boundary-pushing artists. Aspects of this collection are dark, at times macabre, but these images are complemented by arrestingly playful pieces, and accompanied by first-person texts that shed light on how and why these individuals make their art.

- from Hunt & Gather website Illustration Now!3 Ed Julius Wiedemann

Illustration Now! 3 is another great book. I love to see illustration work because it is my first love. I have affairs with glass, but illustration is my life mate.

From magazines and newspapers to ads, websites, album covers, and even mobile phone wallpaper, illustration is a crucial element in visual communication today. With unlimited creative possibilities, illustration is as unbound as imagination itself; whether it's a simple pencil drawing, an ornate airbrushed painting, or a computer-generated image, an illustration speaks the international language of ideas.

- from Illustration Now!3 website Christina Drejenstam in Illustration Now!3

Well, the Driftwear Giveaway is still on.

I'm so excited that I am slowly, but surely, fixing up this site. I just updated the Glass Art portfolio!! I'm still not finished, check it out here and let me know what you think!

- Ciao Amarettogirl

Kanzashi

Kanzashi Flowers have been all the rave on the crafty internet in recent years, but it seems I've just come around to it. Kanzashi is the Japanese art form of folding fabric the way one would fold paper in origami. Inspired by the new book Kanzashi In Bloom by Diane Gilleland I got really into exploring the medium. I thought I'd do a review of the book while I was at it, so here goes.

Kanzashi In Bloom by Diane Gilleland

PROS- The book is written in a very clear and effective manner. The history of the craft is done respectfully and eloquently. The instructions for seemingly complex folds are excellent, with photos linked to each step smoothly and very clearly. The projects in the book are attractive, feasible and open to enough interpretation to inspire unique work.

CONS- However my one gripe is the book only shows how to do three folds, and where that is good for a beginning crafter, it leaves craft junkies like me hungry for more!! I actually googled 'Kanzashi' images and saw lots of pieces made with a wonderful petal fold that was not in the book that thankfully I was able to teach myself! See the images below for what came from the book and what did not.

Kanzashi flowers I made from instructions in the book.

However the image below is of a necklace that I'm making with a Kanzashi flower fold that was not in the book.When I 'googled' images of Kanzashi flowers many were made with a unique petal fold that left one side of the fold in double layers. I sat down for a while anad played with the fabric and eventually taught it to myself!

Kanzashi necklace that I'm making detail shot click to see

So I have found that I like the silk fabric of abandoned men's neck ties for Kanzashi the best (though cotton patterned fabrics are fun too). There is something about taking a very masculine fabric (neckties) and converting them into such feminine flowers.

Kanzashi is addictive and very meditative much like crocheting or knitting. You will however need a thimble if you plan on making a bunch.

I like using both fabric covered brads (in the scrapbooking section at the craft store) or covering my own buttons with matching fabric.

Kanzashi Flowers made from one of my bosses 'vintage' neckties!!!!

I am planning on creating a tutorial for this fold here soon so stay tuned!--Amarettogirl

Wanderlust Dreams

Summertime is right around the corner, prompting me to revisit the idea of summer-dreamin' - what I would do if I knew I could not fail (or if I simply had the money). I think answering this somewhat universal question is vital for all of us and can truly inspire life changes (if not the big ones - at least the little ones).

If I could, I would get one of these:Vespa GT250

Isn't she stunning? Though I would share one, if I'm dreaming - I might as well say I'd get two Vespas so my husband can come along on my adventures. I have wanted a Vespa since my college years when visiting Europe, Greece and Mexico meant inevitable run-ins with these romanticized and adorable pint-size buckets of speed. There something about the wind in my hair, (under a helmet of course) but via a machine that my five-foot size one inch body can control!

Daily Coyote Book by blogger Shreve Stockton I would travel across country like this TOTALLY INSPIRING blogger: Shreve Stockton http://www.dailycoyote.net/

Shreve Stockton got up one day and decided to drive across country from San Francisco to New York City on a Vespa.

She chronicled the trip through photographs and blogged about her experience at a blog called Vespa Vagabond. During her journey, she stopped for one, single, solitary day in Wyoming and fell in love with the place. After she reached her destination (NYC), she ended up returning to Wyoming to start anew. While there her life crossed paths with an orphaned coyote whose parents had been shot. His name is Charlie. The Daily Coyote blog chronicles Charlie's life as he lives in a log cabin with Shreve, her cat Eli and the newest member of the family, puppy Chloe.

Hogan's Alley Guerilla Art Project

Though I have secret fantasies of seeing how much greener the grass is in other parts of the country, if I had that Vespa, my travels would revolve around the North Western parts of the Garden State, NY state, excursions to the grocery store, bookshop and summer escapades.

If I feed the dream, I would perhaps travel across the country as well. However, unlike Shreve, I would busy myself with doing spontaneous acts of anonymous Guerilla Art! Of course, just like Shreve, I would photograph and blog my journey for you, but I doubt it would make it into a publication!

OR...

The other dream I have is to forgo the Vespa, home and job and get one of these:

MaryJanes Farmgirl Teardrop Trailer

MaryJanesFarm Limited Edition Teardrop TrailerMaryJanesFarm Limited Edition Teardrop Trailer

This baby is a beauty and it would unleash the farm/cowgirl/nomad and wanderer in me! I would pack up the dogs (and again possibly the husband) and seek out a life of wanderlusting self-sustenance!

But the dream starts getting a bit impossible right around here since this little trailer will set you back $14,425 big ones...but look at what you get!

My little classic American travel trailer is easy to tow with virtually any vehicle. (Also great for those weekend antiquing trips—fill ’er up with your finds!)

Its aluminum matte finish exterior sports vintage-style steel wheels with baby-moon hubcaps and wide whitewalls, reproduction fiberglass fenders, and reproduction 1932 Ford tail lights. Inside, you’ll find maple woodwork, a cozy double bed with ample room for two, lighting, and a ceiling vent fan, completed by a locking entry door with a porthole window and a sliding picture window and screen. Out back is a tailgate kitchen, featuring a 12-gallon water tank, sink, and faucet; ample cupboards; a Coleman camp stove; and a matching 54-quart Coleman cooler that rides up front in style when not in use.

Purchase includes a night at MaryJanesFarm B&B getting acquainted with your new little darling, and lessons for both towing and what many women dread most: b-a-c-k-i-n-g up. Before I send you down the road with your MaryJanesFarm Limited Edition Teardrop Trailer, you’ll be driving in any direction you choose!

But at this point in my life...these fantasies are simply not possible. So its best to reign in the dreaming (for now) and return to the feasible and that is turning to Vivian Swift's amazing book.

Vivian Swift is a wonderful illustrator and watercolorist who hangs up her traveling shoes and starts to see the world immediately around her with fresh eyes... When Wanderers Cease To Roam

Vivian Swift's illustrated Book When Wanderer's Cease To Roam Vivian Swift Illustration - Book excerpt from When Wanderers Cease To Roam by Vivian Swift