Lesley Barnes' Colorific "Firebird"

Something lovely and a little bit different to start off with this week. The Firebird as illustrated by the amazing Lesley Barnes.

Lesley is a British illustrator, originally from Glasgow. If you're familiar with animation you wouldn't be surprised to learn that's where she started, but her colorful illustration is what she's best known for today.

Currently Lesley is featured on the cover of the new image-delicious book The Graphic Canon of Children's Literature: The Definitive Anthology of Kid's Lit as Graphics and Visuals edited by Russ Kick.

Presenting a selection of pieces from the The Graphic Canon of Children's Literature, written by Russ Kick and published by Seven Stories Press.  

In this follow-up volume to the lauded Graphic Canon series, master anthologist Russ Kick shows adults everywhere that great children's literature is great literature, period. And that it's not just for children.

 

The original three-volume anthology The Graphic Canon presented the world's classic literature--from ancient times to the late twentieth century--as eye-popping comics, illustrations, and other visual forms. In this follow-up volume, young people's literature through the ages is given new life by the best comics artists and illustrators. Fairy tales, fables, fantastical adventures, young adult novels, swashbuckling yarns, your favorite stories from childhood and your teenage years . . . they're all here, in all their original complexity and strangeness, before they were censored or sanitized.

You can find out a little more about the sorts of projects she's worked on and upcoming works in this short but lovely article HERE.

Enjoy!

The concertina book is now on my (impossible things) fairy tale wish list too!

You can find Lesley Barnes in many places on the web! There's a nice board showing a range of Lesley's work HERE on Pinterest, and below are all the official links:

instagram 

shop 

vimeo 

youtube

twitter 

blog 

tumblr

facebook

Ask Baba Yaga: How Can I Get Over the Fear That This One Physical Feature Makes Me Look Grotesque?

RAGANA YAGA. New label coming soon for a new beer from Seventh Son Brewing Co. by Mike Moses

Self image - I haven't met many people who don't have some issues with it, and I've met a LOT of people who hate mirrors. It doesn't matter if the feature really is grotesque or not, if you get caught off guard by your reflection in a bad way when you're otherwise feeling just fine, it can change your entire day - or the direction you're taking in a key decision.This is a question I'm very curious to hear Baba Yaga's answer for.

Today's question and answer (via poet and oracle Taisia Kitaiskaia* of The Hairpin):

(Originally posted at The Hairpin HERE)

I think I'm going to need a little time to mull over this one and just what that ink pool is for me personally. What I want to know now is, how do I 'step through the glass to glimpse other Sights'?

What do you think of Baba Yaga's advice?

Want to ask Baba Yaga a question of your own?

You can!

There's now an email address where you can send your questions

directly to Baba Yaga herself.

AskBabaYaga AT gmail DOT com

To encourage Baba Yaga to continue imparting her no-bones-about-it wisdom (ok, there may be some gristle in there... bones too), I suggest we not to leave her box empty... 

Thank you Baba Yaga (& Taisia).

* Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. Born in Russia and raised in America, she's had her poems and translations published in Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, and others.

LA Opera's Costume Rare Tag Sale TODAY ONLY (Cinderella Costumes Included)

Doing some promo footage for the 2015 LA Opera Costume sale for KTLA Morning News

Looking for a Cinderella shoe, or broom? How about a Papageno mask, or a handmade stepsister wig? Today - Saturday March 28th - might just be your lucky day. The LA Opera Costume Shop is having a public tag sale (today only).
 


The LA Opera Costume shop is cleaning house in prep for moving their location and having a rare "tag sale" of about a thousand items worn on stage in numerous productions, including more than a few worn by the world's greats (think Placido Domingo). Fairy tale costumes will be included in the selection of course!

The L.A. Opera's costume shop, pictured in 2013 during the tailoring of outfits for "The Magic Flute," is moving -- so an estimated 1,000 costumes are being put up for sale. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

From the LA Times and ArtsBeatLA:

Think late 19^th century bustles and flouncy panniers; handmade shoes and masks; military garb and gladiator gear; period wigs and accessories. The items for sale are from productions such as “Cinderella,” "Aida," “The Grand Duchess,” “Lucia di Lammermoor” and “The Turn of the Screw.” Prices start at $25 for complete costumes and $2 for individual pieces. 

One-of-a-kind items such as handcrafted hats, uniquely designed shoes, numerous masks, theatrical jewelry, period wigs, gladiatorial armor and even slave cuffs will be laid out on tables alongside the racks.  Also for sale will be bolts of unusual fabrics and faux fur, as well as buttons, belts, floral hair pins, bustles and panniers. 

   

Costumes available for sale will include items from Aida, The Barber of Seville, The Birds, The Broken Jug, Cinderella, The Grand Duchess, Lucia di Lammermoor, Orfeo ed Euridice, The Queen of Spades, Salome, The Turk in Italy, The Turn of the Screw and Vanessa, among others.

A special “diva rack” will have the high-end items, $1,000 to $5,000, worn by stars such as Jennifer Larmore, Kiri Te Kanawa, Bryn Terfel and Deborah Voigt.

You can see a slideshow of some of the available costumes HERE and

If you're in the neighborhood, go check out the 90 clothing racks at:
330 South Alameda Street in downtown LA (parking lot)
10:30am to 4pm
Saturday March 28th ONLY 

It's a public event and you can browse for FREE!

If you go, don't forget to take your camera. We want to see the goodies please!

Vote for Timeless Tales' Next Theme!

Would you like to read some new retellings of the Goose Girl or Baba Yaga? Do you have a new story on the theme of Thumbelina or Bluebeard that you'd like to submit but don't know where?

Timeless Tales Magazine lets its readers choose each theme. 

While they are preparing their Perseus and Medusa issue (releasing in June), you can head over to their poll and vote for Issue #5's theme. 

As you can see, Baba Yaga is currently in the lead, but the poll is open until April 5th, so that could change. Head over HERE to check it out and vote (anonymously) with just a click. 

Which one is your favorite?

Thoughts On Word Trails & No Longer Seeing the Forests for the Trees

I saw a wonderful scene this week. Bear with me as I share it and hopefully I'll explain what I believe it has to do with fairy tales:

The scene was from the show The Americans*. While I'd be hard pressed to relate this show to fairy tales generally, it makes interesting observations about the human condition, love, despair and choices. The following scene is of the main male character, Philip, with his KGB handler, playing scrabble. Philip, at this point in his journey, is questioning the wisdom of orders given to him and his wife, feeling that it is compromising him as a basic human being - as a father and husband:

[Scene: Philip and his Handler playing scrabble.] 

H: Stuck between a geode and a hard place. (shuffles tiles) "Amatory" -(counts points)  24 yes, - 24 -loving , devoted,adoring. 

Philip: Where do you come up with this stuff? 

H: I love words. They leave a trail. For example, amatory is from the Latin word for 'love'. While wedlock - the condition of being married - is Norse, Norwegian: wed, lock. Which means perpetual battle. 

Philip: Your point being? 

H: Love and marriage in many ways are antithetical: one is a bolt of lightning, an epiphany, and the other is planting, tilling, tending. It's hard work. 

Philip: (glares at H) I'm trying to concentrate here. 

H: Oh sorry. 

Philip: (puts down scrabble letters)  

H: (reads) "sphinx" - excellent. 59 - bravo.**

Such a great exchange.

He's right. Words leave a trail.

At Myth & Moor yesterday (Terri Windling's wonderfully mythic and inspirational blog) Terri talked about the sense that our stories are disappearing, like many of the world's forests. She was quoting the book Tales Of Faerie and I have started discussing (From the Forest by Sara Maitland) and began by referencing a passage that caught my attention too - about the frustration parents have with the lack of response when they ask their children what happened in their day, ie. "Nothing." My reaction when reading this was so strong I went and grabbed a pencil, underlined it and bookmarked it to read to my husband later.

It finishes by explaining: "... but the 'nothing' is a cover for "I don't know how to tell a good story about it, how to impose a story shape on the events.' "

by Banksy (one of my favorites!)

Using words to tell stories is hard now. We're not only out of the habit, most people don't grow up with this; it's not as common a developmental skill as it used to be. For many, there just isn't time. At least, not to tell stories in that form. For others the gap between everyday expression and "word "smithing is just overwhelming and intimidating. Since oral stories (and general yarns and tale telling) have fallen out of everyday use, being able to tell tales is no longer a common-man thing to do. Whether or not it is true, to many it feels like telling stories are the territory of "true writers" only, so people just... don't. (Using myself as an example, Myth & Moor is full of beautiful, inspirational and thought provoking writing - I highly recommend it - and the comments on Terri's posts range from articulate to poetic - so much so, I often feel unable to comment, certain that I have nothing to add, even though I've always been made welcome there. And this is from someone who does write every day, adores words and has a rudimentary understanding of Latin and other base languages.) As a result, the people who understand those trails of history and stories within the words seem to be fewer and fewer every day. When it comes to tales, people not only get tongue-tied, the stories they stumbling-ly tell, lack vitality, the tales become muddied and, in some ways, they start to die.

The Grimms were motivated to write down fairy tales because they felt their language and tales were disappearing rapidly in the cultural clime. And they were right. Their work in stopping this from happening altogether is often underestimated but we owe them much.

Today we have the same sense, that stories and tales are disappearing, along with our language. Forget correct grammar, people don't even use full sentences anymore. (See? Just like that.) We resort to catch phrases, memes and emojis to communicate and express sentiments. We summarize in infographics. It's alarming in many ways but the lack of words doesn't mean language and stories are disappearing. It means they're changing shape.

In an age of the internet, in which we need to navigate the constant press of information overload, we've turned the bulk of the words off altogether and begun processing everything the fastest way possible - visually. And it works. After all, visuals are processed 60 000 times faster in the brain than text. We now live in a visual culture and there's no escaping it.

What tends to happen as a result though, is that WE DO LOSE STORIES through the gaps. And tales, and those word shapes with their trails. So what do we do?

"Knock Knock" by Hilary Leung

This is something I've been looking at seriously for a good couple of years now - the impact of visual communication and visual consumerism on storytelling. In many ways, this new form of language has opened up new forms of stories to people who weren't interested in telling tales before (for whatever reason). People who always responded with "Nothing" now fill their Tumblr accounts and Pinterest boards with fan-made images and quotes, blending ideas and sentiments, suggesting avenues of thought and inspiring conversation.

by Raquel Aparicio

"The hyper-visualisation age is now upon us, where any visual media object can act as a portal to other media." (source)

A truly interesting thing (and hidden treasure) is this: the best forms of these new "stories" (however fractured and incomplete they are) lead to words. And more words. The image shorthand is being used like a filtering system in an age of information overload. And the best, most useful "filter caught" images, usually use words too.

Sometimes trying to find what you want is like opening a Matroyshka doll - layers within layers within layers... and sometimes it seems more like hunting Koschei's soul which was hidden inside of a needle, inside of an egg, inside of a duck, inside of a hare, inside of an iron chest,buried under an oak tree, on a island, in the middle of the ocean... but ultimately, the words - and the tales - they're in there.

(There are hundreds of articles explaining to business people and marketers just how important the use of images with the right phrase is.) But it can't be just any words. They specifically use 'the right ones', the succinct ones, the ones that, in conjunction with the image, tell a spare story with a lot of resonance; very much like fairy tales always have.

People are drawn to the life in words (and trees), to the history in them but it's hard to know, when there is so much in front of us demanding our attention, what we should pay attention to. (Why should we care about this tree here when there are so many more?) 

Images help filter. Not too surprisingly, when you figure out it's not really 'words' people don't like, it's the tidal wave of text that feels impossible to process, people can start to sort out just what it is they want to pay attention to - and they go word hunting. Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and many other publications still do exceptionally well publishing multiple page essays. Novels are devoured in print and ebook form alike - perhaps more than ever. People want to read. They want words, and stories and forests and tales. They just want to choose their path so they don't feel so lost.

But how do we get people to the start of these paths and tales so they choose to walk them, themselves and, in doing so, keep them alive?

More specifically, what is a writer to do? How do we preserve our beloved fairy tales from becoming distant memories, footnotes in essays or forgotten tales in out of print books? 

The answer is simple. We have to find new ways to tell them. 

That also feels exceptionally difficult to figure out how to do. 

(The reason this post has taken as long to get up as it has is due to my search for appropriate visuals to include - and I'll be the first to admit, this whole post would have been better received had I been able to present it in a much more visual manner. I wish I had the skills to pull together reaction gifs and create "visual poems" to capture the essence of what I'm trying to communicate but I didn't grow up that way and don't have those skills... yet.)

Interestingly, dealing with this exact issue in their own times is, I believe, exactly why the Grimms, Andersen, Perrault and Wilde are still known today. (I have a post on this coming on this shortly - how these fairy tale writers made their tales truly live.)

We know, in principle, that fairy tales are very much a living thing. It's ironic that writing them down to preserve them serves to help them stagnate, almost as if they "solidify" in their written form. Often, it requires these coma-like story forms to get a jolt, usually from another media source, to wake up these 'sleeping beauties' and have people notice and love them again. And perhaps some savvy use of available tools in this "visual era" can help.

I know. It sounds exhausting and I'm right there with you. Can't we just sit in our corners and write our words and have them there ready for when people want them? I wish we could. But if we want to be part of making sure tales stay alive we need to be active as they're being redefined and retold. We need to be part of the 'telling'. The best historians don't just dig into the dusty past and tell us what happened, they explain why things happened the way they did and show us the direct connection to ourselves, how we can learn from history to learn about the world as it is now and to make a better future. Otherwise why bother with history at all?

Eventually, when the noise of the world is sorted and people know what they want to focus on, words become even more precious than before. It's then that they ask for more words, more tales. 

People will continue to come back to words. The trick is to keep the trail visible.

____________________________________________________________________

For those looking to learn more about this 'visual era', here's a short list (really!) to get you started, The ones with the orange stars are super quick, informative skims. The purple stars are recommended reads over the rest if you're short on time:

The Guardian: The New (Visual) Culture: how to produce quality in a world of quantity
*WallBlog: Turning advertising into a service: brands must embrace the hyper-visual landscape
*Social Media Examiner: 4 Businesses Leveraging Storytelling With Images
* Business 2 Community: Why Image Trumps Everything in Today's Visual Age
FastCompany: The Rise of Visual Social Media
Marketing Magazine: Brands Should Take the Visual Web Seriously, says Facebook's EMEA Boss
* Cyber Alert: Visual Storytelling Campaigns That Inspire, Motivate and Generate Action
MindFire Communications: It's A Visual World. Show Your Story
* LinkedIn: Market Researchers: Do you Speak Visual?
* MDG Advertising: It's All About the Images (Infographic)
* Wishpond Advanced Lead Generation Marketing Blog: 10 Reasons Visual Content Will Dominate 2014
SteamFeed: Why Visual Content Will Rule Digital Marketing in 2014
NeonTommy: Visual Poetry Collection 'Kern' Meshes Literature And Art

* It's one of the few shows I think is brilliantly done in every aspect and which I do my best to keep up with, even if I can only see 10 minutes of a show at a time. It's very brutal at times but I love the juxtaposition of a couple working on their relationship and raising an American family against the background of being KGB spies in America.

**  I thought the riddle response was a great touch too.

Reader Spotlight: Tale Spinner Steve Shilstone

Editor's Note: Steve Shilstone is a long time writer and shares his lovely fairy tale flash fiction for free on his blog Fiddleeebod. This gentleman tells delightful tales and when I asked if he could share a personal story about his love for fairy tales, the story he sent me was no exception. Enjoy! (I've included links to his website, which also showcases his available books, below.)

_________________________________________________________________________________

A Yellow Fairy Book Tale

by Steve Shilstone

There it is, offered for sale on ebay, a bargain at $400, an 1894 first edition copy of Andrew Lang’s Yellow Fairy Book. It is a much healthier twin to the battered and tattered volume I discovered on a shelf of my mother’s bookcase around 1954.

If memory serves (sometimes it does), I was 10 years old and searching for something to read. Down a row of books I went, pulling, examining, rejecting, putting back, until I came to a volume so worn and tired (used and loved) that the printing on the spine was unreadable. The cover, however, though faded, beckoned. Well, have a look at it. Enticing, no? And so, like Dorothy opening the door of her house after it landed on a witch in Oz, I opened the Yellow Fairy Book and proceeded to lose myself in tales of dragons, witch-maidens, a glass mountain, and the occasional nixy.

Plucking the book, long lost now, from that shelf remains among the clearest of my memory shards. How did it come to be there on that shelf? What was its story? I don’t know, but I can take a pretty good guess.

Once upon a time, in 1894 to be exact, a newspaperman brought home the newest Fairy Book from Andrew Lang to read to his daughters. The two girls were delighted, enchanted, and pretty much over the moon about it. The fact that their father had interviewed Sitting Bull was okay, but it rated low compared to the new fairy story book. Years passed, and the book found its way from Evanston, Illinois to Los Angeles, California and later to the Ojai ranch home of the older daughter when she married. Four children and a lot of use later, the book was the beloved property of my mother, the youngest of those four children. Oh, the places it went (a bow to the good Dr. Seuss) – Colorado, Kentucky, Colorado again, the state of Washington (where I plucked it from the shelf), and back to California. And then what happened to it? Lost in the shuffle of many a move? I suppose so.

I do own this:

And all the rest:

But it’s not quite the same, is it?

_________________________________________________________________________________

I will admit to having serious book envy right now! The Lang Folio books are on my imaginary gift registry for my personal fairy tale anniversaries... Thank you for sharing Steve!

Steve's series, Bekka of Thorns (eight books in the chronicles to date), are available through Wild Child Publishing HERE and should you have need of a tale spinner, Steve can be contacted at: steve AT bekkaofthorns DOT com.

Steve Shilstone is an elderly fellow living on a mountain in California. He has distributed mail, coached baseball, painted pointilist pictures, worked in department store stockrooms, graduated with a degree in Anthropology from UCLA, and written many a tale. His fantasy blog, featuring several flash fairy tales, is HERE.

Bibbidi Bobbidi Basketball Jerseys

1. THE PLEASURE ISLAND MONSTROS

A Whale of a Team

The man-eating beast lurking around the shores of Pleasure Island has inspired this team’s monstrous stats. Watch out for their end game (and their toothier front, as well)!

Fairy tales and sports: it's one of those combinations I have to weed through daily to find the 'real' fairy tale news, but this time the two have been combined wonderfully by the talented graphic design team at shirts.com.

These guys looked like they had a lot of fun making these! 

4. THE FORBIDDEN MOUNTAIN THORN BUSHES

A Thorny Lineup

You’ve got to watch out for these players! They have infamous elbow jabs and they know how to use them. If they’re behind at the half, they become real fire-breathing hot heads.

15. THE SNUGGLY DUCKLING DREAMERS

Breakin' Femurs

The only team in the league that can somehow play with hook hands. They’ve got big dreams to win the whole thing and nothing is going to stop them except, perhaps, a spontaneous frying pan duel. 

Very clever!

Here's their introduction (and I like their notes about the teams too):

16. THE ARENDELLE ICE HEARTS

It Takes Heart

Beware the frozen heart!

They’ve got icy resolve to win at any cost.

They keep their home games as cold as an eternal winter,

 the cold never bothered their biggest fans, anyway.

It’s that time of year again: the sneakers are squeaking, the balls are bouncing, and you’ve finally spotted your first referee of the season. It can only mean one thing -- March Madness is here! 

While we’re all basketball mad around the office with our brackets all stacked with care, we noticed that we have a year-round-madness that is much more magical than even the hottest NCAA game. We’re speaking, of course, about Disney magic! So, we thought it would be a wonderful idea to take our two passions and mash them up. 

If the Disney universe held its own basketball tournament, these are the jerseys all the fans would be proudly sporting to every game.

I have to say, if these were real products, I'd be pulling out my wallet to order a couple of them right now.

14. THE XIAN LUCKY CRICKETS

Lucky Shot

If your team can deal with the incessant cricket noises throughout the game, we think they’ll have no problem winning the match. Either way, fans love the fireworks show at the end buzzer!

(I like the cricket one because it makes me think of lots of different folktales too, not just the movie source.)

You can go see them all, full size, HERE - and guess which jersey belongs to which team (movie).

Now we just wish they were real.