Sally Lloyd-Jones' Blog

If Kid's Wrote Movies

2013-05-07T09:00:00.001-04:00

A friend sent me this. So well done. And so true.

If kid's wrote movies...

The film makers asked some children to pretend to be a salesman and a customer.

Here's what they came up with:

SL.

Spin Wisdom

2013-04-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

Is it just me? Or are spin instructors saying these profound things? Lately, as I pant and sweat and spin my way along at top speed going nowhere, I’ve been noticing there’s all this motivating cycle inspiration. (Wait! I feel a book title coming on: “Spin-Spiration”!)

Sorry.

But seriously.

My favorite:

If you’re comfortable, you’re doing it wrong.

Oh dear.

How about this one?

The last 20 seconds are the most important: when you want to stop—keep going because that’s when you get stronger.

Oh no.

Or this:

If you’re shaking, it doesn’t mean you’re weak; it means you’re doing good work

Horrid.

Here are some others I’ve collected:

Whatever you did before, do it better next

After all you’ve done, this is nothing

Only a specific goal gets you specific results

The hardest part was showing up

Put your heart into it—half-hearted makes no one happy

You’re competing against yourself

Relax, focus, breathe

Climb like a professional

This is why you came here

Don't back down

What other Spin-Spirations have you heard?

SLJ

Spaghetti Harvest April Fool

2013-04-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

First broadcast on BBC Panorama on 1st April 1957, a very young Richard Dimbleby revealed the wonderful world of Swiss spaghetti production to millions of deprived and hungry post-war Brits.

(To be fair, back then Spaghetti was not eaten much and was rather exotic.)

Most of Britain were taken in. Even my dad - who is usually brilliant and smart - even the likes of he, totally fell for this gigantic April Fool's joke! Which just goes to show, if you have a serious and very important enough voice, you can hoodwink anyone.

What an inspiration to us all.

SLJ.

Writing jokes, songs and picture books

2013-03-19T09:00:00.001-04:00

Ballet dancers can make floating in the air look easy, make balancing en pointe look effortless. But the only reason they only can do that is because they have spent hours and hours training, putting their body through torture. They can do it only through sacrifice and suffering.

Behind all that ease lies hard work. Maybe tears. Certainly pain.

Mastery it seems to me is making something incredibly hard look incredibly easy. Mastery hides the craft and the skill and the hours and hours that went into making it look that easy, so that all you see is the grace and the ease.

It's also true of writing. One thing I know about picture books is: if it looks easy, you’ve probably done your job. (Is that why so many people think anyone can write one?) If someone looks at your picture book and says: “WOW! That must have been SO HARD!” you've missed it. It should look easy. It should look as if anyone could do it.

In fact, if it looks like you worked on it, you probably need to work on it some more.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the master picture book writers themselves:

"I never spent less than two years on the text of one of my picture books, even though each of them is approximately 380 words long. Only when the text is finished ... do I begin the pictures." Maurice Sendak

"I know my stuff all looks like it was rattled off in twenty-three seconds, but every word is a struggle—every sentence is like pangs of birth. THE CAT IN THE HAT ended up taking well over a year." Dr Seuss

Years and years on a short picture book text?

Here’s a great clip from Jerry Seinfeld on how to write a joke. This one took him 2 years.

Two years on a joke?

Yup. Working on this joke Seinfeld compares to writing a song. He could just as well have been talking about writing a picture book.

Blaise Pascal apologized for writing a long letter: “I made this so long only because I didn’t have time to make it shorter.”

It takes hard work—to be simple. It takes longer—to be concise.

Short is not the same as quick.

SLJ.

Happy St David's Day

2013-03-01T09:01:00.001-05:00

Today is St David's Day. So... Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!

St David (seen here in a stained glass window from Jesus College, Oxford) is the Patron Saint of Wales. In the 6th century he helped spread Christianity among pagan Celtic tribes of western Britain and he only ate watercress and once stood in the middle of a lake up to his neck--but I don't remember why.

He is famous for saying, "Gwnewch y pethau bychain" ("do the little things") but then proceeded to be canonized and do great big things.

But then again, even the greatest of all journeys is made up of small steps.

So, in honor of St David and his Day, why not do the little things today... take the next step... do the next thing.

Hooray for St David!

Hooray for St David's Day!

And Hooray for little things!

(oh and happy birthday Dad!)

SLJ.

Nemo

2013-02-19T09:15:00.001-05:00

The Blizzard came and transformed the city.

Before the snow ploughs and the footprints and the salt and the dirt could arrive, I got up early to capture it.

I stepped out of my apartment—and into Narnia. Complete with lampposts.

Everywhere, everything was brimming with light. Beauty that catches in your throat. Sudden brightness—shining in the air, in the trees, in the skies, at your feet.

Every moment a new landscape. The early pink skies and the gentle light on the snow cushions on benches. The afternoon sunlight that turns trees to crystal, and a park into an enchanted forest.

Snow making everything beautiful. Covering over the ugliness, making everything look new. Almost as if the world has been made again and we are coming upon it for the first time.

Is it the world—or our eyes, that are made new?

A friend reminded me of a lovely C S Lewis quote about children and snow -

"Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. Haven't you ever noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children—and the dogs? They know what snow's made for." [C S Lewis, The Hideous Strength]

Children’s eyes are new. They can see what we have become blind to.

Wonder.

Snow reminds me.

I would like to live every day with the eyes of a child.

I would like to unlearn what I’ve learned.

I would like to step out of my apartment every day with new eyes to see what is always all around me, shining at my feet.

SLJ.

Spin Wisdom

2013-02-15T15:03:00.001-05:00

Sorry.

But seriously.

My favorite:

If you’re comfortable, you’re doing it wrong.

Oh dear.

How about this one?

The last 20 seconds are the most important: when you want to stop because you can’t go on—keep going because that’s when you get stronger.

Oh no.

Or this:

If you’re shaking, it doesn’t mean you’re weak; it means you’re doing good work

Horrid.

Here are some others I’ve collected:

Whatever you did before, do it better next
After all you’ve done, this is nothing
Only a specific goal gets you specific results
The hardest part was showing up
Put your heart into it—half-hearted makes no one happy
You’re competing against yourself

Relax, focus, breathe

Climb like a professional

This is why you came here

Don't back down

What other Spin-Spirations have you heard?

SLJ

The Good Doctor

2013-02-05T14:27:00.001-05:00

People often ask me, “Are you related to THE Lloyd-Jones?”

To which, of course, I respond ... “But I AM the Lloyd-Jones.”

Of course, what they're really asking is: “Are you related to THE Doctor David Martyn Lloyd-Jones?”

Dr David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) is the rock star of theologians, writers, thinkers (seen here wondrously on a horse). And I'm a total groupie.

I wish I could say I’d met him. Or heard him preach. Or had him as my great Uncle.

Sometimes I even wish (inappropriately) I could tell lies: "Ah yes! He used to dandle me on his knee of an evening. How well I remember him singing Welsh hymns to me! Oh yes—and the time he took me riding on his horse!"

Anything to not have to say the one thing I actually end up saying which is: "No.”

Which for some reason I always follow with "sorry." I feel it is such a let down. I'm rather let down by the whole thing myself.

The only connection is that half of me is from that same passionate Celtic corner of the world (Wales). But it doesn't quite do, since I've never lived there and only know maybe three words (“Hello”, “Goodnight,” and “Darling”—handily perhaps the most essential ones, but nevertheless.)

But I'm pleased when people ask me if I’m related—because it means I've found another fan of DML-J's teaching and sermons and books—and (if they're not too disappointed) probably a new friend, too.

If you haven't heard of him, then I'm happy to introduce you... Meet THE Doctor David Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

In fact, I snuck him into my new book "Thoughts To Make Your Heart Sing". One of the things I loved best about writing this book was that I got to share some of my MOST favorite writers and thinkers.

Here's one entry (inspired by the good Doctor’s great book, "Spiritual Depression".

[You can find the digital poster HERE - & ways to share it with others!]

SLJ.

The Crystal Cathedral

2013-02-05T14:00:00.001-05:00

If you'd told me a couple of years ago, I'd be appearing in a big cathedral with a full orchestra and choir and with a former Miss World—I’d have laughed. Don't be silly.
I never would have beleived you.
But then again, if you'd told me I'd be "Playing the Ryman" I wouldn't have beleived that either.
I'm learning what I expect or think or imagine is beside the point - and usually way too small.

So anyway, there I was, that Sunday morning last December, driving to The Crystal Catherdral to be interviewed by Bobby Schuller about my new book "Thoughts To Make Your Heart Sing" - in two services that are broadcast to millions.
I was driving along when suddenly I had to pull over. There, smiling out at me from the side of the road was a face in lights - a face I knew - me smiling back at me. Obviously I had to stop and take a photo.

Next I parked in the campus. Took some more photos. And then I met the friendliest, most generous people, who welcomed me and fed me and prayed for me. I had make up and hair done, trotted up some steps in between some pastors and out into the cathedral - and the service.
It was wild. It was nothing I ever expected. And it was a total blast. I can't wait to go back!
Here is the video of it. (Miss World comes after me.)
SLJ.

Picture Books and Accounting

2013-01-29T09:45:00.001-05:00

One December, I found myself looking back over the year wondering, unhelpfully, in a businessy tax-ish counting sort of way: "Now let's see, what exactly did I do this year?" (I should have known by that "exactly" where this would go).

So I began counting up the number of picture book manuscripts I'd done that year—in a kind of awful picture book accounting.

It wasn't long before I realized there were none. I'd written no picture book manuscripts. I hadn't got a single picture book contract that year and no picture book published.

I had done nothing.

How could this have happened? I'd been working so hard. What had I been doing all that time?

The trouble was I was looking at picture books like an accountant—as if they were products you manufacture. But picture books aren't products you manufacture; they are seeds that you sow.

[photo by sally lloyd-jones]

A picture book can begin like a poem (I think all great picture books, actually, are poems) and Robert Frost said it best:

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”

You can't force a picture book—any more than you can a seed.

[photo by sally lloyd-jones]

They need time to take root. To grow. You have to wait for them. You can't make them come by force of will power. They come when they are ready. Like plants. You have to work hard: get down on your hands and knees in the dirt. You must till the soil, water and weed. One year, none will come up. The next, they may all come up at once.

So when you can't see anything and think you've got nothing to show--it's probably not that nothing is happening. It's probably just that what's happening is quiet, and hidden and secret.

[photo by steppingstonetransitions.com]

It has a lot to do with trust. And a lot to do with waiting. And a lot to do with being on your knees.

And almost nothing to do with accounting.

SLJ.

Beauty For Everyone

2013-01-15T16:14:00.001-05:00

When you walk through Central Park you feel like you've have escaped out of the city into the countryside—you are surrounded by natural beauty.

Except that it's not.

Natural, I mean.

The space where Central Park was built was originally a “pestilential, rocky swamp.”

The natural beauty of Central Park is completely designed—to seem as if it wasn't.

When the park was built, back in the 1850s, only wealthy New Yorkers could afford to go the Adirondaks. The designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, wanted to give those who couldn’t afford to go, the experience of being in the Adirondacks, the same experience of beauty.

Central Park is a park designed for everyone.

Joshua Cohen wrote of two examples of the designer’s obsessive attention to detail.

First, the park is 2 ½ miles long. The Central Park Commission said that there had to be four cross-streets connecting the east and west sides of Manhattan. To do that and still feel as if you’re in the Adirondacks, Olmsted and Vaux put the cross-streets eight feet below—an innovation in park design.

“Second,… in … the Bethesda Terrace there’s a fantastic ceiling made with more than 15000 tiles. They’re encaustic tiles which means that the color and geometric design on the surface goes all they way through: it is not a glaze but multi-coloured clay. The ceiling was designed by British architect, Jacob Wrey Mould, based on his two-year-long study of the Alhambra. So this public park in New York City includes a structure with a ceiling based on one of the most beautiful works of architecture in the world."

Beauty for everyone.

I’m so grateful that Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux believed everything matters, that they went for excellence—down to the tiniest, most obsessive detail. And, as a result, gave us Central Park.

Excellence, it turns out, is not elitist. Excellence is the most inclusive thing. It is beauty and beauty reaches everyone. It's a bit like books that way. At least picture books. The best ones are completely designed to seem as if they aren't.

Truly great design is almost invisible, I think. It's there not to draw attention to itself—it’s there to not get in the way of the story, the experience, the beauty.

Great art is a generosity. Because it's not about the creator or the designer—it's about the person looking at the painting, the reader opening the book, the New Yorker walking across the park.

SLJ.

PS: One last fact about Central Park you may not know. I didn't. It took more gunpowder to build Central Park than was used by both sides in the battle of Gettysburg.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Six Golden Tips for Tea

2013-01-02T14:09:00.001-05:00

With the start of the new year, we are all turning over new leaves. But are you turning over a new tea leaf?

Is your tea flavorless? Insipid? Bitter? Ordinary? Or worse… Cheesy?

Here, just in time, come the six golden tips for making the perfect cup of tea.

Think you know all about everything already? Did you know this golden rule: never, ever EVER store tea near cheese.

Neither did I.

Follow these tea tips and then your year will be off to a good start!

You're welcome.

SLJ.

Playing The Ryman

2012-12-14T15:45:00.001-05:00

The Ryman. Most famous former home of the Grand Ole Opry. The stage musicians long to play on.

Legendary.

Musicians say when they Play the Ryman--(because you don't "play at the Ryman", you "play the Ryman")--no matter how famous they are--they are without fail humbled. Humbled thinking about all legends who have trod the same boards before them. Legends including Elvis, Johnny Cash (who met his wife June Carter for the first time back stage at the Ryman), Patsy Cline. They all played the Ryman.

Emmy Lou Harris, Neil Young, Mumford and Sons, Coldplay have all played the Ryman.

And now me. Yes, I "Played the Ryman."

Last December around this time, I found myself sitting on that same legendary stage looking out at the audience--sitting among my wonderfully talented musician friends--and having really no idea how I got there. I'm a children's book writer. This is not part of what we do.

And yet--there I was "Playing the Ryman." (I was not singing you'll be relieved to hear--just reading from my books). I was honored to be part of Andrew Peterson's moving BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD Christmas concert.

And here I am back again for another year. Thanks to Andrew. And I can't wait.

(And I'll still be pinching myself.)

(And sending photos to prove it to you--but mostly to prove it to me.)

SLJ.

"Song Of The Stars"

2012-12-10T15:39:00.001-05:00

And high above a single star set in the highest heavens shone out brighter than all the others and poured down silver onto the little shed... "A Light to light up the whole world". {Song of the Stars}

When Zondervan asked me to write a Christmas picture book, my first thought was Oh no! There are so many Christmas picture books out there already. How can I make one that’s different.

And I wondered— how can I catch the reader by surprise with this magnificent, familiar story?

And suddenly I was a child again in Africa full of excitement and longing and wonder.

Christmas was coming. There was no snow on the rooftops. The evenings weren’t closing in. But Christmas was coming.

I was a little pale blond English girl living in a world surrounded by nature and by animals who had no argument with their maker.

Romans 8:19 speaks of “all of Creation longing.” The Psalms tells us that the created order now declares the glory of God (Psalm 19 & 65).

And I began to wonder: when Jesus came, did Creation sense it? It would not be surprising if they did—since they now declare the glory of God, since they long for him. I started imagining the animals and the stars sensing and rejoicing in the coming of Jesus.

When the one who made them came to earth, maybe they knew—though we didn’t.

When the promised gift, the long-awaited one—at last breaks into history—when he at last comes down into his world it is as a glorious surprise.

When Heaven kisses earth. When God becomes man.

Because every Christmas story comes as a gift—and a surprise after longing.

Different that we expected. More than we hoped. Just what we need.

And full of wonder.

"Song of the Stars" is mine.

My hope is that it will perhaps capture something of that wonder. That we would long for him, the way Creation longs for him. And most of all, that he would find room in our hearts—that he would be born again in our hearts this Christmas.

SLJ

what part is work?

2012-09-17T10:00:00.001-04:00

Having just come back from almost two months of traveling all around (some of it working, some of it not so much) it was a bit of a shock to come back and face Sitting-at-a-Desk Work (as opposed to Galavanting-Around Work).

Imagine my joy at finding this quote... but all joking aside, this is seriously true. I believe every word. You must fight for this every day.

"It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications."

Anais Nin

Illustration is by Jago from our new book THOUGHTS TO MAKE YOUR HEART SING coming in October. It shows Polzeath Beach in Cornwall, near where Jago lives. It just so happens to be one of my most favorite places in all the world. I've been going there on holiday since I was tiny. How cool is that?

Wonderful World

2012-09-10T12:00:00.001-04:00

She's not sick, she's a dancer

2012-09-02T12:04:00.001-04:00

Picasso said all children are born artists. But we don't grow out of creativity, according to Sir Ken Robinson. We are educated out of it.

Here's Sir Ken Robinson at TED being very funny and very right about creativity... and the education system that has us believing maths is more important than dance...

Paring away, simpler and simpler

2012-08-06T12:02:00.001-04:00

Dick Bruna's drawings of Miffy only allow for very miniscule changes to indicate emotions--the position of eyes, the length of the ears, the shape of the mouth.

"That's all you have. With two dots and a little cross I have to make her happy (...) or a little bit sad--and I do it over and over again. There is a moment when I think yes, now she is really sad. I must keep her like that."

He is constantly paring away, distilling down to the simplest purist form possible. When he draws Miffy crying, for instance, he says, "I very often start with three or four tears. I take away one, and the next day I take away another one, and at the end I have one tear, and that's very, very sad."

Georges Simenon wrote to him and said: "I see that you are trying to make your covers still simpler and simpler. You are doing the same in designing as I try to do in writing."

It might take him a day to draw a single illustration of Miffy.

<note: I'm going to take an entire month off from blogging... so, see you back in september!>

Dick Bruna and Miffy

2012-07-30T12:01:00.001-04:00

I love Miffy. She is so simple. And I know what that means--there's a huge amount of work that got her to look that simple.

Dick Bruna, the creator of Miffy said:

"I would love to be able to draw like a child, so spontaneous, so open-minded on those big sheets. As an adult you start to draw and then hope that you make something good, something beautiful. A child is not like that, they start and see what happens... I draw things you will see close to home, things that I also like. Maybe I still think a bit like a child, I have a childish mind, I think. There are a lot of things I don't understand."

Dick Bruna (b.1927 in Utrecht)

One wet and windy seaside holiday, he drew a story for his son, Sierk. It was about a little white rabbit called Miffy. His first Miffy children's book looked like this (1957):

By 1963 she looked like this:

I love his simple daily routine--he is a multi-millionaire mogul (over 85 millions books sold in over 40 languages) and yet this is his day (as simple and distilled as his art) every day he gets up at 5, squeezes a glass of orange juice for his wife Irene, draws her a picture about things she has done, or reminders of things she is planning to do. hHe cycles to Utrecht canals and goes to a cafe for coffee. Works in his studio. Cycles home for lunch. Back to the studio in the afternoon to do admin work.

Miffy is 50 now--and to celebrate, a museum was opened in her honor. The Dick Bruna Huis.

famous naps and nappers

2012-07-16T11:57:00.001-04:00

UNIDENTIFIED NAPPER

THOMAS EDDISON

LBJ

NAPOLEON

Do you feel sleepy? Seeing all those famous nappers napping?

Do you nap?

I do. Sometimes. But i'm not very good at it. Maybe I could get good.

Salvador Dali said napping was the secret of why he was such a great painter--he performed the "slumber with a key" trick. The micro nap. To do this he sat in a chair with a heavy key in his left hand (held between thumb and forefinger). A plate would be placed upside down under that hand. When the key slipped from his finger, the plate would ding and he'd wake up.

He learned this from some monks and also Einstein napped this way too.

Scientists say that these brilliant men had unknowingly taken advantage of what is called the "hypnogogic" nap which is when the mind--before it reaches stage 2 sleep--unlocks free flowing creative thoughts.

Sorry I have to go immediately and find a key and a plate.

via

the art of maniliness

Picture books and Margaret Wise Brown

2012-07-09T12:03:00.001-04:00

"A book should try to accomplish something more than just to repeat a child's own experiences. One would hope rather to make a child laugh or feel clear and happy-headed as he follows a simple rhythm to its logical end, to jolt him with the unexpected and comfort him with the familiar; and perhaps to lift him for a few minutes from his own problems of shoe laces that won't tie and busy parents and mysterious clock time into the world of a bug or a bear or a bee or a boy living in the timeless world of story." Margaret Wise Brown

This was 1935 and it was brand new stuff for picture books. Before Margaret Wise Brown, the picture book had been dominated by fairytales and fables. Margaret Wise Brown's focus on a child's every day life dignified children's own lives and was a game changer--it changed children's literature and the picture book for ever.

And it was fed by her work as a teacher at the progressive Bank Street Experimental School in New York City, where she listened to children and heard their stories and how they spoke.

It's what makes her voice so distinctive. I love her titles: The Noisy Book, The Important Book, Another Important Book. They're still fresh today. How radical they must have been then.

She was a pioneer. She fought for keeping big words in her books, refusing to dum down the language. She fought to get authors and illustrators proper royalties and fought to get the illustrator the same royalties as writer. (Before they had only received a flat fee.)

What would you spend your first royalty check on? She spent hers on a cart full of flowers. How wonderful. Then she invited all her friends over for a party to help her enjoy them. What style!

what's it about--the story or the writer?

2012-07-02T12:05:00.001-04:00

Margaret Wise Brown loved reading as a child and remembered all the stories she read but none of the authors.

"It didn't seem important that anyone wrote them. And it still does seem important. I wish I didn't have ever to sign my long name on the cover of a book and I wish I could write a story that would seem absolutely true to the child who hears it and to myself."

It's as if the story is timeless. It just is. You as the writer were lucky enough to find it. You were available and it came through you. You were that person on whom nothing was lost. But it's all about the story and not about you, the writer. The writer is simply the servant to the story. If it at any point the story becomes the servant of the writer--if it becomes about you then you can be certain of one thing: you're in the way--and the story can't get through. And it won't be as good.

In the end the job of the writer is to be available, then get out of the way and let it go.

Margaret Wise Brown's two classics THE RUNAWAY BUNNY (1942) and GOODNIGHT MOON (1947) (both illustrated by Clement Hurd) are not only still in print--they are still bestsellers.

See the full gallery on Posterous

She led an adventurous life: dating the prince of spain, hosting parties in her Upper East Side apartment, generally being a stunning New York Socialite.

Here's what The Writers' Almanac wrote:

"Brown never had children herself, but she worked with young children as a teacher in a progressive education program at the Bank Street Experimental School. She was also a New York socialite — tall and strong, with blond hair and bright green eyes. She dated the prince of Spain and loved to host parties in her Upper East Side apartment. She spent her first royalty check buying an entire cart's worth of flowers, and often took the proceeds from a book and purchased a ticket to France or a new car.

"She died suddenly at the age of 42, energetic and adventurous up to the end. She was on a book tour in Europe when she was stricken with appendicitis and had an emergency appendectomy. She seemed to be recovering well, and she decided to show her doctor how good she felt — so she kicked up her leg in the can-can. It caused an embolism, and she died immediately."

Untitled

2012-07-01T12:34:00.001-04:00

hermes handbags, handbag shops + handbag friends

2012-06-25T11:57:00.001-04:00

I believe that Hermes may well be copying me.

Really.

They are.

Look.

Here's a page from Sue Heap and my HANDBAG FRIENDS:

and here--from a recent exhibition in London, "Leather Forever"--is this picture: "Kelly Neon" sculpture by Alexandra Plat in the "variations on Kelly and Birkin" room.

Need I say more?

Yes I do.

Because you see when the former King of England, the Duke of Windsor, went shopping in Paris, looking for a gift for Wallace, the vendeuse suggested gloves. The duke said, "My wife already has a wheelbarrow of gloves!" So Hermes made just that--a leather wheelbarrow to store her accessories. (This was 1947.)

Here again is a page from our book:

Look closely. What exactly are those princesses carrying their accessories in??? None other than... A wheelbarrow! (You may be saying ah yes, but your story was written way later, way after 1947 so how could they be copying you? And you are right when you are saying that--but written down doesn't mean it didn't happen way before that date. Which of course it did because it is a fairystory and those kinds of stories don't ever date. In fact they are timeless.)

I rest my case.

You see, children's books are influential--clearly they are upstream from fashion. Indeed so far upstream are they, that they are upstream even from Hermes.

And now since that is such a large fact to take in, we may need to take a breather. So what better way to close this handbag bulletin than with a song--and a Handbag Song at that:

Perfectionism versus getting things DONE

2012-06-11T12:02:00.001-04:00

via
Joshua Rothaas