Category Archives: Bedtime Stories
Bedroom Design: There Will be (Ox)Blood
Post by Laura Cheng.
Oxblood red is making its debut in bedroom decor, just in time for Halloween. Not just a color for blood cells, red is taking a very dark turn for fall. A few shades deeper than burgundy, oxblood red is one of the richest, most luxurious shades for everything from pillows to walls.
On a recent flight, I was bored and antsy. I started to browse the SkyMall magazine strategically placed in the seat pocket in front of me. I generally find more humor than considerable content in this tabloid of a shopping catalog. However, this time, I stumbled upon a red Fontella felt rose pillow that did capture my attention and serves to be very strong contender for oxblood red bedroom decor. When incorporating oxblood into a room, starting with a small, but powerful statement piece such as this pillow is a good way to ease into the trend. Red is definitely not an easy color to experiment with. But pillows such as these can help with the transition.
Source: http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=204518814&c=
Other accessories such as a porcelain lamp can also used to make a bedroom bold and bright a little step (for both your pocketbook and your hesitant sanity) at a time. Whether matte or shiny, oxblood red adds the right amount of color and drama to the bedroom.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/b629kvu
Trying to find the perfect shade of red is like trying to find the perfect pair of jeans. Although finding the perfect pair of jeans may be slightly easier. It took me 8 years and after 42 pairs, I am not letting go of my vintage Levi’s. By the looks of this bedroom, you could never tell that red is one of the hardest paint colors to get right. This highly stylish bedroom makes it look so easy. It works well because the bed and curtain linens are kept crisp and neutral. Oxblood works well with white, black and beiges. Variations of the red, as seen in the floral arrangements, add depth and interest to further enhance the colors.
Source: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/oct/21/red-hot/
Not quite ready for fully painted walls? Curtains require less of a commitment. When it comes to curtains, color and fabric must be considered. This bedroom accomplishes both. Floor to ceiling oxblood red taffeta curtains transform this bedroom into a ballroom. The fabric is almost life like, grazing softly across the floor. Again, simple, muted furnishings allow the deep red hues of the curtain to grace the bedroom without overpowering it.
Source: http://www.thedecorista.com/2012/08/what-windows-want.html
Bedtime Stories: The Last Dragonslayer
Post by Mark T. Locker.
The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde.
If you are a fan of cheeky British mysteries and/or metaliterature, you may be familiar with Jasper Fforde, whose Thursday Next novels and Nursery Crime series are quite well-known. His deft handling of the role of corporate culture, media, and government in a dryly ironic manner that only an Englishman could do keeps him always funny and always interesting.
This theme carries over into his first foray into his first series aimed at young adults and he pulls off the transition seamlessly.
Jennifer Strange is a foundling, brought up by the Sisterhood of the Lobster and given to the Great Zambini (can you guess his profession?) to be trained as an apprentice manager of magicians. But when Zambini disappears and she is left, at age fifteen, to manage a building full of magicians (who are notoriously scatterbrained and disorganized) she thinks her new fate has been drawn.
Little does she know that real fate is still awaiting: Jennifer Strange is the last in a long line of Dragonslayers, sworn to protect humans from dragons and dragons from humans. When it is foreseen that she will kill the last dragon, she embarks in her spike studded Rolls Royce Slayermobile to figure out what is fate, what is choice, and what is the matter with people.
I usually avoid books involving dragons, but here I have made an exception and I’m glad I have. Although the whole series is out in the UK, we stateside folks have to wait for the next two books sometime next year.
Bedtime Stories: The Internet is a Playground
Post by Mark T. Locker.
the internet is a playground: Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius by David Thorne.
Attention: this bedtime story is approved for adults only! Read it aloud to your spouse or partner, or the pet you believe, to an unhealthy extent, is a suitable replacement for a spouse or partner. However you choose to go about it, by all means go about it. David Thorne’s book, previously published on his website 27b/6 is well worth reading if you are not easily offended and have a good sense of humor.
The bulk of this book is email correspondences the author has engaged in, clearly for his own amusement. Generally the people he engages with have asked him for something or behaved in some manner which has pissed him off and he engages them in often lengthy logorrheic email exchanges. In the end, David either gets away with something by sheer tenacity, or manages to make the other party look like complete jerks which, oftentimes, they are.
From wearing down a poor Blockbuster Video rep until she finds herself forgiving all his fines to letting bigots who write him to tell them how much they hate him show their true colors, his shameless and hilarious correspondences are funny and also (for my part at least) always seem to put people in their place. It’s a fun read when you don’t want to commit to a long story. I love it. If you don’t…contact the author.
p.s. Extra points if you can figure out the origin of the name 27b/6!
Bedtime Stories: The Summer People
Post by Mark T. Locker.
The Summer People by Kelly Link.
Okay, so I have a couple caveats here. First of all, this is actually just a short story in a collection, edited by Kelly Link called Steampunk!. It’s a bunch of stories by a number of well-known teen authors such as Libba Bray, Garth Nix and, of course, Ms. Link has her own story in there as well. Since I can’t find my copy of Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters (which, by the way, I reviewed for this blog last year) which I really wanted to read I was excited to find this new story of hers in this collection of steampunk-themed tales. Hers is actually not steampunk in the slightest; there is nary a reference to gears or pistons—but hey, she’s the editor, she could publish a recipe in this book if she wanted (which would probably be totally creepy and weird and I’d totally read it)—but I’m actually quite glad. Reading through the other stories I realized that I’m just not that into the whole steampunk thing. Which isn’t to say that they aren’t good; these are some of my favorite authors. I can only take so many gears and smoke and steam.
Which brings us to “The Summer People” which is classic eerie and strange Kelly Link. I’m not going to go too in-depth because it would be hard to. Young Fran lives in some town which enjoys a number of tourists in the summer, and a relatively quiet life in the off-season. She and her father take care of the summer people, getting their houses ready for their annual visits. But there are others they also call the Summer People, who live in a strange, cluttered house in town. They are magical, mysterious, and tricksy. Fran is bound by generations of tradition to care for them, until she can find someone to replace her…
Bedtime Stories: Ghosts in the House!
Post by Mark T. Locker
Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara.
By golly, but this is one adorable book! Sure, it’s full of ghosts, and there’s a witch, but there is nothing less spooky than this clever little ghost story.
A little girl and her cat move into a new home. However, the house if HAUNTED! Positively teeming with ghosts! Luckily, this little girl is a witch and she LOVES ghosts! With the help of her cat (who, inexplicably, is decked out in a cat costume) they gather up the spooks, run them through the wash, and use them to decorate their new home. Turns out ghosts make lovely curtains and tablecloths, and pretty good bed linens too!
If you have a kid who is easily spooked (mine is, but only about the most arbitrary things; Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Wolfman is too scary, but Harry Potter is just fine) not to worry; the ghosts are super happy to be strung up as curtains. They are positively smiling about it! It’s a really cute book that we bust out every Halloween, and it gets a lot of love during those weeks.
