[book review] Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals

Dinty W. Moore's Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals is not really an advice book. Nor is it really about love or cannibals, although there is advice in there to be gleaned, and he does mention both love and cannibals. He also talks a lot about Michel de Montaigne, an essayist Dinty seems to admire. It's really a string of confessions about writing and living as a writer, and it's really very funny. It's also quite short, and the high ratio of illustrations mean you're turning pages rather more rapidly than usual.

The book has an index, which I only mention because it helped me just now, when I couldn't remember how to spell Michel de Montaigne, but I'm not sure why it's there, except as a joke. Maybe it's a joke. 

More on this later. 

[book review] Rooted in Design

Rooted in Design: Sprout Home's Guide to Creative Indoor Planting
by Tara Heibel & Tassy de Give

I don't know what I expected - maybe some sort of lightweight, coffee table book, probably in paperback. This book is none of those things.
This is a textbook. It even smells like a textbook. Weighs like a textbook. But when you open it up, it's like someone hid a high-polish magazine inside a hardback shell. Minus the ads, and plus a whole lot of content, of course. I felt like I was looking at one of those fluffy filler articles you might find in magazines with words like "simple" and "rustic" and "living" printed in bold font against a backdrop that indicates "sterile decor" and "trust fund living" and "kids? What kids? I have no spawn to muss my walls."
The imagery is mostly blank white space, broken elegantly by a piece of moss here, a potted succulent there, and the occasional paragraph.
I had a hard time actually getting my eyeballs to read those paragraphs. This is a book that begs to be browsed - like a magazine you pick up in the grocery checkout with no intentions to buy. It's hard to imagine reading this book. In fact, it sat on my table for weeks before I read more than a section subtitle. The interior of the book just looked so much like a coffee table magazine, that I found myself treating it as one. (Let's face it - I treat textbooks that way, too.)
Finally, I forced my eyes to focus on the paragraphs. I started in the middle - I couldn't help myself - then flipped back to the beginning.
It turns out that this book is... well, it's hard to pin down. It reads like the nicest, most conversational, most helpful and friendly textbook ever. That is to say, there really is a ton of information in there, complete with step-by-step guides (that read something like recipes) for the more complicated design ideas given in the text. This really would be a great textbook for a class on this stuff. But never fear - the authors, who do this special sort of plant-based interior design for a living, aren't going to lose their day jobs anytime soon. While they do seem to share a wealth of trade secrets in this book, it's the rare non-interior designer who is going to absorb all that info. Or rather, who is going to want to absorb all that info. 
This would be a great book to check out from the library when you've decided to be your own interior designer for your posh loft apartment in some swanky urban dream, and you want a lot of greenery in your house. Oh, and your home is not situated in an arid desert environment like mine is. Still, I'll probably use some of these ideas (or a poor person's equivalent), and I'll definitely look to the photography for inspiration on future projects. Would I have bought this book, had it not been provided for review? Probably not. I would have happily flipped through it while waiting to pay for my actual purchases, though.

But hey, don't let me spoil your fun. You can find Rooted in Design on amazon. I got my copy from bloggingforbooks.org, where I post reviews in exchange for free books. Free books! Yeah baby!

1977

"Mom, what year did the first Star Wars come out?"
"1977. The same year Uncle Craig was born."
He repeats the year slowly, and I can hear it turning over on his tongue like a molasses ball.
"Nine.Teen.Sev.En.Ty.Sev.En."
Spirit in the Sky plays in the background, pulls us each to our own thoughts.
His thoughts include getting up and dancing about the room, in jerky hops and swinging arms.
"Sit down and eat your breakfast or I'm turning the music off."
He sits, and tucks his feet between the wood chair and that bony butt, toes touching in the middle.
His fingers poke at his egg-and-muffin sandwich.
Soon there's a bite in his mouth and a wiggle in his seat.
"Is it okay if I give the dogs just one of my pistachios?"
"After you're done eating everything else."
"Okay. I'll save one  pistachio for you, and two for the dogs."
He picks up his banana and shoots it, pew-pew.
"Eat it, Bear."
"Okay."
He puts down the banana and takes another bite of the sandwich.
His knees start rising.
Now they're bongos, and his body is perched on tippy-toes, wedged between the table and the chairback.
"Bear!"
"Sorry!" He sits.
"Pew-pew-pew!" goes the banana.
"Put it down!"
"Sorry!" The banana goes down. He snaps his fingers to the music.
"Take a bite."
"Okay."
The banana pulls him up; he takes a bite of it while he sways to the music, his other hand on the chair behind him.  He wiggles and snaps his way over to my chair, leans in, and says very sweetly, "I'm finished."
That hardly seems possible, but it's true.
Don't worry, about a thing, cuz every little thing's gonna be alright, Bob Marley tells me.
Thank goodness.

someone once told me

Someone once told me
that all the stars are gray.
Someone once told me
that trees can't move alone.
Someone once told me
that they couldn't stay away.

Stay away - til the wind dances and your limbs sway -
stay away - til the gray stars sing your heart to home.

~~~

Someone once told me
that all They did was lie -
that other group, of Other people,
people who were Them, not Us.

"Them" had families, had lives and loves;
"Them" lost families, lost lives and loves.
We weren't the only losers.
They weren't the only liars.

Someone once told me that if you could write their story,
you should.
How else will we hear it?
If it doesn't come from Us.

Their story won't be heard, here, in their own voice.
We're too deep in ourselves to listen
to any voice but our own.

So here I am in comfort,
writing stories of a people not-Us,
whose voices we cannot hear,
with words I struggle to recall.

~~~

Two poems, two very different topics, one prompt: "Someone once told me..."

From Freewriting I, 18 March 2015.

Shared in the imaginary garden with real toads.