This is an extension to the post from earlier this month!

I added the last of the requirements (a non-photographic image e.g. a scanned image) to my designs and played about with them until I achieved an effect that I was happy with…. Ta-dah!

These are only print screens which is the reason for the bad quality, sorry!

Today we are having a critique in class so hopefully I will get some interesting feedback….

I have yet to see the Julie and Julia film about the cooking blog that became a book/film..but I know some of you have seen it, in which case you might like to read the ‘author interview’ with Julie Powell on the Penguin website. Julie Powell’s blog is at http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2003/09/02.html. Interesting reading. More interesting is when she says in her author interview that she was lucky to have come to blogging never having done it before and in the early days of blogging. Is she indicating that things have changed and even with the same idea (cooking her way through the cookbook bible that taught all America to cook) she might not have had such a blog/book/film success.

I have these ever growing piles of books to work my way when I get out of school in December, one theology, one of everything else. As I have just gotten some time back due to having taken the GRE last Friday, I started the book at the top of the “everything else” pile was “Human Happiness” by Blaise Pascal. I started reading and have come across some great one liners. Enjoy:

“Man’s Condition;Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.”

“A trifle consoles us because a trifle upsets us.”

“What amazes me most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness.”

“Description of man; dependence, desiring for independence, needs.”

“wisdom leads us back to childhood, Except ye become as little children.“

“Between us and heaven or hell there is only life half-way, the most fragile thing in the world.”

“We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it.”

This project is nearly at a close now, with the deadline looming (like it seems to be for just about everything!) I have some work to show!

Basically the brief was to create a book cover in the style of the classic Penguin series, using 3 randomly wikipedia generated subjects. My 3 subjects are: Telephone, New York City and Madison. We then had to search for a life source image and along with 2 other (1 photographic and 1 non photographic) self generated images, do some weird stuff to it (Image manipulation is the title of the unit) and create something interesting.

This means not just taking a photograph and putting as a front cover, but cropping it in unusual compositions to create a story to our random words.

Here are, in my opinions, each of my best results so far, although they are still not quite ready!

I have found this project quite hard because I usually create quite clean designs, but this has called for grungey, mysterious, unusual shapes and patterns to be created.

After I was looking for novella’s the other day I was quite shocked to note that I hadn’t read a book by Muriel Spark since 2007 and my pre-blogging days in fact I was introduced to her by Novel Insights in both or pre-blogging days and Aiding & Abetting was a choice for our old book group. It surprised me I had left it this long as I really enjoy her writing and so after having read a few larger books thought I would go for a short Spark next.

The Girls of Slender Means tells the stories of several young women in the year of 1945 living in The May of Teck Club (pretty much a hostel) near Kensington Gardens. The girls are all working as clerks or secretaries and living on rations, clothing coupons and hand outs from admiring men. Through each on of the girls in the book Spark looks at the morals and plotting of such a group of women in both a comic and sometimes shocking way.

We have Joanna a rectors daughter who shockingly fell for a rector herself before coming to London and teaching elocution lessons, Greggie, Jarvie and Collie the old maids of the building, Pauline Fox a mad young lady who believes she dines with the actor Jack Buchanan every night, Jane Wright who works in a publisher and gets authors to write letters signed she can sell on the black market and yet who doesn’t know Henry James is dead and Selina a woman of loose morals who sleeps with weak men but pursues strong ones for marriage partners she wont sleep with yet. All of them will become more unified and torn apart though not only when Nicholas Farringdon a charming author turns up, but when a shocking (I gasped) event leads to one girls fatal end (I gasped again).

I must mention one of my favourite characters who doesn’t actually appear in the book very often but whom every time I saw her name on the page I knew I would smile. This was Dorothy Markham who was a wonderful character, and shows how even small background characters are incredibly well drawn in Spark’s world, a debutante who came out with lines like ‘Filthy lunch’, ‘I’m absolutely filthington’, ‘I’m desperately well thanks, how are you?’ and the one which made me laugh out loud ‘Filthy luck. I’m preggers. Come to the wedding.’

This was my first read in the November Novella challenge I decided to take on and what a fabulous one.Showing an interesting insight into women of a certain class during the late stages of the war this book would make for a wonderful part in women studies, fictional women of course though with characters this alive you wonder if Spark may well have known them in her lifetime. The writing is sparse yet punchy and full of life and a delightful hour or two whizzed by in the company of the girls of slender means.

I am now wondering which Spark I should bump up my reading list. I have already enjoyed ‘Aiding and Abetting’ and ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ so where to next. I think that ‘Memento Mori’ may well be my next port of call on the Spark Trail. What would you recommend? Are you a Muriel Spark fan?

Some time ago – probably back in 2007 – I bought a book called ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton. I wanted to make a difference in the world in which I live – to give something back as it where. As a Christian there are many ways for me to do so, but I also wanted to make a difference in more mundane matters and ways also. Of course I know that Christians are able and currently do make a difference in a variety and plethora of ways. I was looking for something a little different to the norm I guess.

Anyhow, I came across this book and thought that this would be a great book to read one day at a time – as the book suggests one action/theme for each day of the year. This book would give me plenty of food for thought and there would have to be many things that I could do or participate in to make a difference.

Not long after I bought the book my world was turned upside down and became something totally different to what I had up till then been living. Totally is probably not the right word, as some things didn’t change – but it was certainly life-changing.

I chose to leave my job in an organisation for which I had worked for nearly twenty years, the last few of which I was a manager. My health was terrible, with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome causing absolute havoc. I moved from the area in which I was living to a totally different location and under different circumstances, and that without a job. Life had changed tremendously for me and all of my belongings were locked away in a storage shed until I could sort my life out and start afresh.

I got another job which was completely different to the one I had before. My health seemed to improve dramatically and the dreaded illness which had plagued for two decades seemed to finally disappear. Then I had a terrible car accident which almost killed me and prolonged this transitory period of my life.

Now finally, I have recently been able to get all my belongings out of storage – including this book by Michael Norton. It is therefore now time to start again what I had originally planned to do and had begun back in 2007. I will read the section of the book marked out for each calendar day and consider what I shall do with the actions/themes for that day. It may be that there will be days that I will not take up the suggested action or activity, while on other days I may very well throw myself into the suggested action or activity. What I am hopeful of is finding at least one action or activity, though I am fairly sure there will be far more than one action or activity that I will participate in to some extent.

I will probably report my attempts or at least my resolutions to engage in actions and activities here, as a way of showing whether this book is useful for assisting people in making a difference. After all, its subtitle is ‘How to make a difference – one day at a time.’ As I set out on my journey with this book, I am quite excited by the prospect of making that difference and becoming more engaged with the world in which I live – in a positive manner.

I think the book is a brilliant idea and something that most people would find helpful – even if they do everything that is suggested in the book. It is certainly packed with ideas and suggestions.

There is also a web site to use along with the book:

http://www.365act.com

All of the ideas in the book are included in the web site and many more according to the book. There is also an ‘ideas bank’ on ways of changing the world for the better – which also seems to be a brilliant idea I think.

OK, I will now look at today’s idea.

My copy of the book (paperback) is by Penguin Books ( www.penguin.com.au ) and was printed in 2006.

Además de adentrarse en el mundo de los cortos con Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, la saga de Ubisoft dará también próximamente el salto al mundo de la literatura. La editorial inglesa Penguin Books ha confirmado que el próximo 26 de noviembre lanzará en el país británico Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance, una novela escrita por Oliver Bowden que nos narrará la historia de Ezio (protagonista de Assassin’s Creed II). Por el momento no se ha confirmado ninguna traducción al castellano del libro, pero ante el más que probable éxito del juego, es también probable que se haga una edición española dentro de no mucho tiempo.

Fuente y Texto:  Hardgame2

Twitter is becoming synonymous with controversy. Don’t worry I’m not going to launch into a rant about Twitter democracy, media oustings or even gossip about Stephen Fry threatening to quit Twitter. I want to return to the greatest thing about Twitter: 140 characters.

There is great skill in being able to communicate concisely. Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter has been written by two 19-year-old students in Chicago – Emmett Rensin, an English and philosophy student at the University of Chicago, and friend Alexander Aciman – and has caused a stir.

While it pains me to read the words, “burdensome duty of reading”, quoted in the Guardian, this book is quite interesting. Its simple and connects literary classics with contemporary linguistics and, ultimately, has got a lot of people riled and ready to defend the importance of reading great literature.

In some ways the book is a complete mockery of literature. As Blazenka Brysha comments on her blog:

“The work begins with a breathy introduction that functions as an apologia for the work’s existence. By wading through overwritten, florid sentences awash with the effluent of metaphors drawn from nature, you learn that the authors want to bring literature to the level of the modern moron, who has neither the time nor the language skills required to read.”

Christie Kiley makes a good point about our modern desire for “instant gratification” in a comment on blog, Issues about New Media Musings.

Quoted on News Hyderabad, co-author of the book, Emmett Rensin said: “It’s funny if you’ve read the books.” Partner in crime, Alexander Aciman added: “There were some lines in the book where we’re sitting on a couch and we’re writing it, and we’d both laugh and say ‘there’s no way they’re going to let us write that’.”

“Some people think it’s funny and some people think it’s disrespectful,” she continued, “I’m not going to say it’s high art. There is some value to it, I feel, aside from the fact we’re making available the idea behind great works of art.”

I’m going to ignore the fact that this could merely be a result of our growing disaffection for the written word amidst our time-stricken lives and lazy attitude. This exercise in condensing plot lines has accidentally made a point perhaps beyond the authors’ intentions.

While many will definitely claim it’s dumbing down our Literary Canon, and some adults will moan about its use of social-networking slang, one of the most important thing to remember about literature is the use of language. And this book explores just that.

William Shakespeare used the language of his day to communicate his ideas.

In the words of the Guardian’s Phil Hogan, “It’s not York Notes.” And neither should it be.The book explores how language can communicate big ideas in a few words through a combination of 140 characters and a culture embedded with literary references.

If you did the same exercise, like the Telegraph’s Jim White, you would most likely pick out other points and events as key – after all, this is just two students’ interpretations.

Finally, in its use of contemporary snippets, it proves that Twitter is not enough; to truly understand, learn and gain from the summaries you have to read the novel, play or poem. Whatever your opinion, while literature is being debated and interpreted, it is still alive.

On an aside, I wonder how many York Notes Emmett and Alexander cheekily consulted along the way?

On November 2:

1755 – Marie Antoinette, Queen of France was born.

1868  New Zealand officially adopted a standard time to be observed nationally

1898  Cheerleading is started at the University of Minnesota with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.

1899  The Boers began their 118 day siege of British held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.

1913  Burt Lancaster, American actor, was born.

1917 The Balfour Declaration proclaimed British support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” with the clear understanding “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities”.

1930 Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

1936 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was established.

1936  Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaimed the Rome-Berlin Axis, establishing the alliance of the Axis Powers.

1936 The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world’s first regular, high-definition (then defined as at least 200 lines) service.

1938 – Queen Sofia of Spain was born.

1942 At El Alamein in Egypt, the 2nd New Zealand Division opened the way for British armour, allowing the Allies to force a breakthrough and send the Axis forces into retreat.

1942  Shere Hite, American author, was born.

1947 Designer Howard Hughes made the maiden (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.

1960 Penguin Books was found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover case.

1961 – K.D.(Kathryn Dawn) Lang, Canadian musician, was born.

1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

1988 The Morris worm, the first internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, is launched from MIT.

I am in love with Paul Smith’s latest collection of Alan Aldridge inspired dresses and accessories. I always love it when fashion brands try to fuse works from visual artists. The result is always brilliant.

A little background. Alan Aldridge’s career began in 1965 as an illustrator for Penguin Books. Two years after, he took over as art director, and introduced his style which resonated with the mood of the time. He moved to his own graphic-design firm in 1968 called INK, which is popular for being closely involved with graphic images for the Beatles and Apple Corps.

I am in love with this Paul Smith handbag.
Size 28 x 16 x 50cm
100% polyester with 100% leather trims
£ 295.00

and this long sleeve, crew neck white cotton printed jersey.

£ 150.00

with a side pocket and Paul x LOGO detail

Penquin’s Popular Classics series are ideal for travellers. Consisting of  classic novels (which are so much better than a lot of the dirge hanging around hostel bookswap shelves – Andy McNab anyone?) condensed into a couple of hundred pages and sold for £2 at bookstores all over the world.

Offering a chance to catch up with the reading you never got time for back home (that’s what 17 hour bus journeys were designed for, right?),  these  cute volume, that just  slip  into your backpack,  really are the ideal for enthuastic travellers.

On various trips I have read Bram Stoker’s Dracula (picked up from Istanbul International Airport) and Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (bought in Kiev), and we are keeping our eyes open for the many other titles in the series (I’ve got my fingers crossed for a bit of Wilde or Poe) .

The catch? Well for £2 you don’t get a cover design, the paper is as cheap as paper gets and the binding tends to fall apart after a couple of  reads.

REVIEW with bonus contents list
@whinjar

Here we go again! Another compendium raiding trad lit for cheap laughs & hefty profits. Well, EMOE (eat my own eyeballs). Need a few lines.

Actually, I needed a birthday present for my mother-in-law, so I picked up a copy of Twitterature “The World’s Greatest Books Retold through Twitter” (Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin, Penguin Books, 2009).

The book is crap but I bought it anyway because although it knows sweet FA about literature, it is an excellent introduction for old people to tweeting. “Old” in my definition, is not just anyone over 25 but anyone who has not, for whatever reason, gazed into cyberspace, yearning to be transported to its magical centre and there attain the godly powers of net-navigating nerds.

A stupid “old” person can learn a lot from Twitterature because it has a glossary and an explanation of Twitter format. LOL, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how moronically one-dimensional and trite this internet development is. Very LCD (an “old” way of saying lowest common denominator, the historic phenomenon of tweeters who lived before tweeting was invented and therefore had to keep their ignorant, inarticulate opinions to themselves). Once you’ve got a handle on the jargon, u r ready to take on the text.

The work begins with a breathy introduction that functions as an apologia for the work’s existence. By wading through overwritten, florid sentences awash with the effluent of metaphors drawn from nature, you learn that the authors want to bring literature to the level of the modern moron, who has neither the time nor the language skills required to read: Paradise Lost (Milton), The Metamorphosis (Kafka), Oedipus the King (Sophocles), Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Byron), The Red and the Black (Stendhal), Macbeth (Shakespeare), The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), The Illiad (Homer), Hamlet (him again), The Overcoat (Gogol), The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway), The Inferno (Dante), A Hero of our Time (Lermontov), Beowulf, Candide (Voltaire), Doctor Faustus (Marlowe), Emma (Austen), Great Expectations (Dickens), Heart of Darkness (Conrad), King Lear (yes), Lysistrata (Aristophanes), In Cold Blood (Capote), Medea (Euripides), Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell), On the Road (Kerouac), Notes from Underground (Dostoyevsky), Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), Romeo and Juliet (ditto), Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle), Eugene Onegin (Pushkin), The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey (Homer), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde), The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goethe), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Sterne), Venus in Furs (Sacher-Masoch), Mrs Dalloway (Woolf), Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), Gulliver’s Travels (Swift), Pride and Prejudice (her, again), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain), Frankenstein (Shelley), Swann’s Way (Proust), The Aeneid (Virgil), The Devil in the Flesh (Radiguet), Dracula (Stoker), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Coleridge), Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Lawrence), Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll), The Tempest (correct), Madame Bovary (Flaubert), Death in Venice (Mann), The Three Musketeers (Dumas), Moby-Dick (Melville), Don Quixote (Cervantes), The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer).

Just before you get excited, you need to know that it is only the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. Although various periods and genres of Western literary history are covered, it is open to debate whether these are “the world’s greatest books,” especially when you consider the inclusion of two Dostoyevskys and not one James Joyce. More likely, they were chosen on the basis of what our authors, undergraduates at the University of Chicago, have read so far. Nothing to be ashamed of here.

Nor is it surprising that every book is turned into a first-person narrative since that is the nature of tweeting. The disappointment lies in the assumption that the book is the content of the storyline, so the treatment leaves you with something bearing mostly only a cursory resemblance to its source. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to think along these lines, if I hadn’t recently come across 80 Classic Books for People in a Hurry, illustrated by Henrik Lange and written by Thomas Wengelewski (Nicotext, 2009), which goes straight for the jugular with a delightfully subjective attempt to interpret a book as a whole and what it might be about. The more familiar you are with the books, the more amusing it is, even when dealing with some serious stuff.

Either way, both works in question are not intended to introduce people to literature. Their purpose is to entertain and to that end, I quote the following from Twitterature(or Twitrature, as I think of it):

“I realise now that women should submit, and make me a sandwich while you’re down there.”

“My husband won’t give me a divorce. I would go Lorena Bobbitt on him if he had any use of his dick.”

“He thinks I don’t love my husband because of him. The secret is, I don’t love my husband because I dig chicks.”

“I’ve got it! Rather than accept financial aid from my friend, I’ll murder an elderly money-lender in cold blood. Why? I’m not telling.”

“For TWITTERATURE of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, see On the Road by Jack Kerouac.”

“After a time I’ve become very rich and successful, and very good-looking. This ought to mess with their heads back home.”

“Uh oh. This cave is a giant’s lair. He has a taste for cheese and my companions. He also has only one eye. Trying to keep from laughing.”

”We stripped off. I did lines off her tits. Couldn’t get it up and know not why. Smoked an entire pouch of tobacco instead.”

“Incredible. Everything you might ever need to survive on an island was in that ship. Guns, food, bread, books, you name it.”

“Before I cut off Grendel’s head my men sodomized him and I shat in his face. We used to do that in school, remember? (Is that messed up?)”

Not sure I should give this to my mother-in-law. She’s never read Beowulf. Might give her the wrong idea. I wonder how many men call their dicks Moby? Peace, bitches.

Blazenka Brysha
31/10/2009

Meine neuste Entdeckung ist Perfumes. The A-Z guide von Luca Turin und Tania Sanchez. Es ist erst gestern mit Amazon gekommen und schon bin ich süchtig danach. Perfums ist, wie der Name schon sagt, ein Buch über Düfte. Nach einer kurzen Einführung über die Geschichte von Parfums und der Beantwortung von FAQs werden über 1.800 Düfte besprochen. Bewertet werden sie nach einem 5-Sterne System, fünf Sterne heißt “Masterpiece” und ein Stern “Avoid”. Bei der Besprechung der Düfte wird wirklich kein Blatt vor den Mund genommen und man merkt, dass man ein ernst zu nehmendes Lexikon vor sich hat und kein Marketing-Instrument. Sofort mussten alle meine Freunde ihr Parfum nennen und erhielten postwendend eine Kritik zurück. Da das Buch äußerst amüsant geschrieben ist, Gerüche z. B. schon mal mit dem eines toten Oktopus verglichen werden, ist es als Sachbuch nicht nur für Leute aus der Beauty-Branche sehr zu empfehlen. Ohne dieses Buch sollte man gar nicht mehr in eine Parfumerie gehen, sagt die englische Vogue und dem kann ich nur zustimmen. Gottseidank haben (fast) alle meiner Düfte vier oder fünf Sterne bekommen! Doch da die schlechten Kritiken so witzig formuliert sind, kann man sich auch mit seinem ein-Stern-Duft wieder anfreunden. Natürlich nicht, dass ich einen hätte!! Einenkleinen Nachteil hat das Buch allerdings: Es enthält keine Bilder. Trotzdem mein  Fazit: Unbedingt empfehlenswert.

Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez, Perfumes. The A-Z guide, Penguin Books

Photo courtesy of Design*Sponge

A few months ago, I posted an excerpt from a story about Coralie Bickford-Smith – the designer responsible for many wonderful book covers at Penguin Classics.

Well, just today, Design*Sponge (if you don’t know this site, you should!!) posted a more extended interview with Ms. Bickford-Smith.  So, I thought I would share it with you here.  Click on the link below to see the full post in its natural habitat…

An brief excerpt from the Design*Sponge interview:

…That’s the nature of cover design really – the designs are there to serve the writing, and there’s such a range of material that we design for that a personal style isn’t necessarily what you want the customer to see.

drooool*

Designed by Penguin Book’s senior cover designer, Coralie Bickford-Smith.

At least, that’s what the question might be today. More and more frequently, we’re seeing a shift away from the traditional. People are writing books via smart phones, news information is being sent in the form of text messages, and there are more forms of social media than you can shake a stick at. What used to work just doesn’t anymore. Why should literary classics be any different?

College students Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin, both from the University of Chicago, assembled a book of Tweets based on classic reads. They call it Twitterature.  Aciman and Rensin look at things from the character’s point of view, asking themselves what they would if they had nothing but an iPhone and a Twitter account. Whatever that is, they turn it into a satirical Tweet.

The object of the book was to create something that wasn’t so “out-of-date.” Tweets include Shakespeare and Dickens, among others. This Tweet comes from Dante’s Inferno: “I’m having a midlife crisis. Lost in the woods. Shoulda brought my iPhone.”

According to an article by Robyn Jackson, one in three high school graduates will never pick up another book. Less than 20 percent of families read and/or buy books these days. With just 20 tweets per book, Tweetable novels may not be a bad idea, but the book has received mixed reviews. Some people think it’s hilarious, witty even. Others think it’s insulting to the literary classics they grew up with.

So, what’s the verdict? To Tweet or not to Tweet?

At least, that’s what the question might be today. More and more frequently, we’re seeing a shift away from the traditional. People are writing books via smart phones, news information is being sent in the form of text messages, and there are more forms of social media than you can shake a stick at. What used to work just doesn’t anymore. Why should literary classics be any different?

Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter

College students Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin, both from the University of Chicago, assembled a book of Tweets based on classic reads. They call it Twitterature.  Aciman and Rensin look at things from the character’s point of view, asking themselves what they would if they had nothing but an iPhone and a Twitter account. Whatever that is, they turn it into a satirical Tweet.

The object of the book was to create something that wasn’t so “out-of-date.” Tweets include Shakespeare and Dickens, among others. This Tweet comes from Dante’s Inferno: “I’m having a midlife crisis. Lost in the woods. Shoulda brought my iPhone.”

According to an article by Robyn Jackson, one in three high school graduates will never pick up another book. Less than 20 percent of families read and/or buy books these days. With just 20 tweets per book, Tweetable novels may not be a bad idea, but the book has received mixed reviews. Some people think it’s hilarious, witty even. Others think it’s insulting to the literary classics they grew up with.

So, what’s the verdict? To Tweet or not to Tweet?

Extreme Pumpkins.com is the outrageous brainchild of Halloween maestro, Tom Nardone. Extreme Pumpkins.com takes pumpkin carving to the next level-where hand drills put the super in “super gooper scooper” and a dremel puts the cheap, chip carver to shame. Nardone’s demonstrated use of power tools and pyrotechnics has inspired a whole legion of quirky, pumpkin designers and has lead to his wildly popular book, Extreme Pumpkins. Nardone’s successful “diabolical do-it-yourself” designs are also featured in the sequel Extreme Pumpkins II and continues with other Halloween hijinks in the recently released, Extreme Halloween. Tom has been featured on Conan, Regis and Kelly, The Travel Channel, Good Morning America, The History Channel, and MTV.

How did you get into Extreme Pumpkin carving?
TN: Every Halloween, I’d carve a pumpkin-or three or four-for my porch. I’ve always tried to scare kids. I lived in this neighborhood outside of Detroit-it was the first safe neighborhood outside of Detroit. So, people that lived in Detroit who had kids would literally pile ten kids into a minivan and drive them up to the neighborhood that I lived in. We’d get about a 150 trick-or-treaters a night. When you did something festive, like carve pumpkins, the kids really loved it because they were from Detroit and didn’t really have any neighborhood of their own. So, I started to carve pumpkins and one day, decided to see if I could do it with power tools. Between my buddy Matt and I, we have every power tool in the universe so we tried everything we had. While we were trying the different tools, I decided that I had to make a website out of it and called it Extreme Pumpkins.

So, what ideas are in your latest book, Extreme Halloween?
TN: It has all sorts of Halloween ideas like crazy costume ideas but not elaborate ones.  More like lazy, last minute ideas.  There are a million people out there who can create some sort of costume idea that no one has seen before but it takes a thousand hours to create. This book just keeps it simple. It also has suggestions for decorating your house, ways to scare kids when they’re trick-or-treating and recipes-how to make silly foods and drinks.  There are also some large pumpkin sculptures to display on your lawn like a scorpion.  One of my favorite parts of the books is the section on ways to scare kids who are trick-or-treating which I call “Candy Traps”.

What’s an example of a “candy trap”?
TN: There’s one that’s called The Dark Doorway. It’s real easy. You open your door all the way and then you take black fabric-two pieces-and tape them up in the doorway.  At nighttime, without much light on the porch, it will look like the door is open and the kid is just looking into a dark, empty house. You stand right behind the dark fabric and then stick your head between the two pieces of fabric so that it looks like your head is popping out of nowhere and then you yell, “Rah!”. It scares the bejeezus out of them, especially if you’re wearing a mask.  Another one that I make is called the “Trash Barrel”.  You just take a trash barrel-a new one, not a smelly old one-although I suppose if you had the stomach for it, you could use an old one.  Then I cut it up, to make a sort of  transformer suit out of it which you can crouch down into it. When you crouch down, it looks just like a trashcan. So, you have your accomplice-in my case, it’s my wife-handing out candy to the kids that come to the door.  The “trashcan” is posted near the door. So, the kids run up and get the candy from my wife. As they’re leaving, they’re busy looking at their bags to see how full it is.  Then, all of the sudden, someone jumps up where there was no one before and screams. And THEY FREAK OUT! Then, they walk a few feet away and hide behind the bushes to watch the next group of kids be scared.  You can easily scare 100 kids in a night.

Do you have any upcoming appearances or book signings?
TN: I’m doing some book signings but they’re mainly in Michigan. I do some paid gigs but there are only a few of those.  The TV appearances usually start to book up around the beginning of October. Last year, was Regis and Kelly and Conan O’Brien.

How was that?
TN: It was awesome! I love to go to those things. They treat me great. They’re always super receptive to any ideas that I have and they think it’s funny.  I think it’s hilarious because you’re on the show with real stars. You’re on backstage with someone like one of the Olsen twins and real celebrities and then, there’s me.  They ask me what I do and expect me to say something like, ‘I cure cancer’ but instead I respond with, ‘I carve pumpkins’.

I noticed that a lot of your friends help create some of the videos on Extreme Pumpkins. You have one group in particular called The Bump-n-Uglies. Who are they?
TN: One of them is a friend of mine who works for me and the other is his brother. They’re a tag team of wrestlers.  The name of my website is called Extreme Pumpkins and by talking to me, I neither sound nor really am very extreme.  One time, I tried to record a video promo of myself saying, “This is Tom from Extreme Pumpkins!”. I looked back at it and thought, ‘you look like the biggest idiot in the world’.  This isn’t going to work. So, I figured out that I need to be the straight man and that I need a couple of clowns-colorful characters. The guy that works for me is a riot.

What other projects are you working on?
TN: I’m working on some ideas for a fourth book but it’s more of book about how to be a fun Dad.  I’m also trying to be a pumpkin ninja.  That’s my theme for this year’s activities.  I’m trying to mix the art of “ninjitsu” and pumpkin carving to see what I get. I make new pumpkin designs each year but what I think makes the website funny, is that I come up with new ways to carve the pumpkins.  This year, “ninjitsu” is the theme. I already bought a ninja costume and a sword on-line.

Are you going to embroider a pumpkin on it somewhere?
TN: I’ve made shirts with pumpkins on them before because if you go to the store to buy anything with a pumpkin on it, it looks like an old lady, beaded sweater or a giant pumpkin shirt. I made my own pumpkin shirt for when I went on Conan.  You know what-you know how ninjas wear headbands (I don’t think that they actually do), I’m going to make a pumpkin for the center of the headband.

You could get some pumpkin nunchucks.
Yeah, I ordered some nunchucks, too. They’re only  $6.99! I’m also going to do some video of my ninja carving technique.  If I’m seen flipping around, it’s all a camera trick.

I’ll keep updating this until I get the entire way through. One of each is me seriously trying to summarize it, one is me doing it so that I might vent my frustrations about how terribly angry this all makes me. Not necessarily the fact that dear Randy assigned it so much as that it exists at all. Can you guess which is which?

Though, to be fair, Nadia and I were discussing how this would be a very interesting constraint, if it were done very meticulously. However, I still say that the people who could do this well, the ones who would use it as a wonderful poetic medium, are not the ones who will be making these bastardizations of the books.

Amazon’s reviews of the Twitterture book:

See what I mean?

Extracts
a) Whales are large. Whales are often in literature. Whales are sometimes referred to as leviathans. Whales are very influential and important to this book.

b) Whales are everywhere! The bible! Sea! Songs! Science! As the author I’m surprised no one’s written a book about hunting a whale, as they have so permeated our society!

Chapter 1–Loomings

a) ohai A/s/l? jus call me 1shma3l. u wanna go sailing 4 a wha1e? k c u soon

b) I’m Ishmael. The sea is addictive. I like being a sailor because I get paid to go to sea. I have a huge desire to hunt a very large whale.

Chapter 2–Carpet Bag

a) Packed up some shirts but missed my ship. Looked for an inn. Found the shadiest one-the Spouter Inn. Oh well, I’m poor. Let’s check it out.

b) Missed ship. Was cold. Wandered and wondered. Found the Spouter Inn. Went inside to inquire about a room.

Chapter 3–The Spouter-Inn

a) No rooms? But I don’t wanna share with a harpooner. Yum dumplings. I’ll just sleep on this bench then. Brrr. Fine, I’ll share. GAH CANNIBAL

b) Inn’s perfectly cheap. Ate dinner. No rooms, though. Slept on a bench before deciding to share. My roommate’s a cannibal. Didn’t like that.

Chapter 4–The Counterpane

a) woke up spooning with @Queequeg and his tomahawk remembered when my step?mom sent me to bed for 16 hrs lol Q got dressed like a weirdo

b) Awoke to @Queequeg’s arm about me and his tomahawk in my side. He became dressed in the rudest fashion.

Chapter 5–Breakfast

a) Sailing men of all sorts were herded like cows into breakfast. @Queequeg harpooned his meat!

b) nomnomnmnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom breakfast

Chapter 6–The Street

a) Went for a stroll, saw a bunch of characters, from the inexperienced sailor to the weathered man. Beautiful women in New Bedford.

b) Left the inn, saw some peeps, scoped out some hot chicks, off to Chapel.

Chapter 7– The Chapel

a) Our brothers of the sea have died here. With a solemn heart I sat down for the service.

b) Checked out the tombstones, saw @Queequeg hanging out. Let’s get my God on!

Chapter 8–The Pulpit

a) YO THIS CHAPEL IS JUST LIKE A BOAT

b) What a beautiful chapel, it is much like a ship on the sea.

Chapter 9– The Sermon

a) This Jonah shit is fucked. I’m gon’ go kill a whale now.

b) The preacher gave a fantastic sermon about Jonah and sin and ended on his knees.

Chapter 10–A Bosom Friend

a) Queequeg and I decided to be friends for life and bedfellows once more.

b) @Queequeg and I are hetero life partners! sMoKeD up, cuddled. No homo, though.

Chapter 11–Night Gown

a) Queequeg and I continued to chat. Fell asleep, woke up and felt dreadful. Q&I partook in his pipe.

b) @Queequeg and I fucked around for awhile. Woke up really fucked up so we smoked some more.

Chapter 12–Biographical

a) Queequeg told me of his royal hertiage and his advertures at sea. What an experienced and wise man.

b) YO @Queequeg is a fucking kinG! And he knows how to make this shrunken head into a bong lolz

Chapter 13–Wheelbarrow

a) @Queequeg n i rolled down the the docks 2 1/2 deep me him and the wheelbarrow lol got in a scuffle

b) Queequeg and I took a wheelbarrow of our things to the docks. We boarded the ship, Q almost threw someone overboard!

Chapter 14–Nantucket

a) Nothing of mention happened on the voyage. Nantucket is beautiful.

b) boredd

Chapter 15–Chowder

a) We arrived at our inn and was served endless amounts of chowder by our hostess.

b) nomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom chowder

Chapter 16–The Ship

a) Yojo suggests that I choose the ship. After considering three, I decided upon the Pequod. What characters run that ship!

b) @Yojo told me to find our whale ship. Craigslist ftW!

Chapter 17–Ramadan

a) Queequeg has taken to the most peculiar rest and fast that I have ever encountered. He only just rose today.

b) “Kick in the door, I look on the floor / It’s my bedfellow Queequeg and he’s fastin’ sum mo’” Cannibals ain’t shit

Chapter 18–His Mark

a) I cleverly convinced the captain that Queequeg is indeed Christian! My skill with rhetoric is even impressive to myself today.

b) Pulled a fast one on the captains for @Queequeg. You’re my bro, man!

Chapter 19–The Prophet

a) Met a queer fellow named Elijah. He both followed and annoyed us.

b) Motherfucker tried to slip us up but @Queequeg and I wouldn’t take his shit.

Chapter 20–All Astir

a) Busy on the ship.

b) Yo, shits busy, no time to tweet-haha

Chapter 21–Going Aboard

From an ongoing collection of Penguin puzzle books.

Did anyone watch Criminal Justice on BBC1 last night? Although I sat in nail-biting suspense throughout the whole programme, I could not help but notice the stunning interior of the family home where all the juicy action took place. I simply loved the minimalistic use of white and the ultra stylish lacquered surfaces. I’m quite certain that the BBC set designers had sourced their inspiration from mydeco’s guide on how to decorate with white!

Whilst we wait impatiently for the next instalment tonight, let’s keep our brains and aesthetic senses satisfied with the latest news and gossip from the design world.

Wallpaper: Penguin by Illustrators

Image credit: Wallpaper

Most people can remember their first Penguin paperback. Mine was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I can still distinctly picture the cheeky illustration of the troublesome protagonist. Over the last seven decades, the Penguin paperback has acquired legendary status with its book cover becoming a showcase for British illustration design. Now you’ve got even more reason to p-p-p-p-p-p-pick up a Penguin as you read Wallpaper’s exclusive review of the newly published book celebrating Penguin illustration.

Wallpaper: Rotterdam hosts the 4th international architecture Biennale

MoCo Loco:  L’Eclaireur Boutique in Paris gets a chic redesign

MoCo Loco: Sleek new screw-like stools by Thorsten van Elten

Cool Hunting: Vibrant video introducing iconic designer Sergio Rodrigues

Yesterday Cool Hunting presented the world’s largest lemonade stand, today they showcase the colourful designs of Brazilian designer Sergio Rodrigues.

In Design Live: Fun Furniture from Zenith

Image credit: In Design Live

Why make furniture boring when it can be so much fun? This is clearly what UK-based furniture designer Jonathan Coleman believes. Doesn’t this photo make you want to play around with the tessellating shapes of the JAKS range from Zenith Interiors?

Design Week: Phillips de Pury auctions design pieces

Design Week: Bojo pushes for custom designed water stations in London

The Telegraph: 10 ways to improve the appearance of your property

The Telegraph: Take off time for Brangelina plus other celebrity property gossip

Image credit: The Telegraph

It’s always fun to keep an eye on celebrities and the property market, and The Telegraph’s latest offering of celebrity scoop is full of surprises. Top story of the day has to be that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie plan to build an airport near their South of France château to cope with the logistical nightmare of moving their burgeoning brood.

The Times: The house that floats above a private loch is up for sale

The Guardian: The Turner Prize Trinity
For once this year’s Turner prize show has brains, brawn and beauty, Adrian Searle plunges in and picks his winner.

The Independent: The ten best power tools

So that’s all for today. Have a good Tuesday and remember that by tomorrow we will already be half way through the week!

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