A Different Stripe

Peter Carey and The Magic Pudding

Image: The Pudding himself in Lavender Bay, Sydney; by  SpacePotato via Flickr

How did we miss this? A character in Peter Carey's novel Theft has a thing for Norman Lindsay's Magic Pudding. For him it is a shibboleth, an internalized text constantly throwing up references the way earlier generations were everywhere reminded of tales from the Bible. Carey was asked about the connection between the two works on Australian National Radio's Book Show:

Ramona Koval: Peter Carey, finally, what is The Magic Pudding doing in the book? It's a favourite of Hugh and Marlene's; is it a favourite of yours too?

Peter Carey: I do love The Magic Pudding. I think everywhere...and I've travelled around a lot and I seem to lose my copies of The Magic Pudding and get new ones, and the truth of the matter is things find their way into your books because...a word might come into a book because of something someone said at dinner last night and it isn't the dinner that you're interested in it's the word and you pick it up and you love it and you use it, and The Magic Pudding I was rereading when I was writing the book. But Hugh does seem very much...I do think The Magic Pudding is one of the great Australian works, and Hugh somehow seems to fit...Hugh having an affection for The Magic Pudding just seemed right to me, and there are things that it just gives you an excuse to celebrate and put in the book that said something about Hugh's character, it celebrates the book, it's a very distinctive Australian book which I love.

Pooh has left the building, but where will you comb your hair?

As the Fuse # 8 blog reported (and documented extensively) Winne-the-Pooh (aka that Silly Old Bear) and his friends have been removed from their home in the Central Children's Room at the Donnell Library (right across the street from the Museum of Modern Art) in Manhattan. The library itself will exist in a much smaller form after the building it's in is torn down to make room for a luxury hotel. Read more about the move here.

The residents of Hundred Acre Wood are being moved to the library's main branch on 42nd street. Where the Central Children's Room will end up (if it exists at all in the future) is anybody's guess.

I wonder what will become of the great signs that hang in the Donnell Library's bathrooms, looking very much like 1955 (the year the library opened, and presumably the year these were printed up)?

Soundtrack to this post: "I am the Sub-Librarian" by Piano Magic

Nikki McClure's Midnight Folk

The Midnight Folk, the companion book to John Masefield's Box of Delights, isn't coming out till next September, but—the necessities of publishing being what they are—we already have the cover in house.

Nikki McClure, whose paper-cut illustrations are all done by hand, and who illustrated the cover of the earlier Masefield book (and kept us in line, reminding us that wolves weren't really evil—no red eyes!—and that metallic inks are environmentally unfriendly) has outdone herself here with a suspenseful image of Kay Harker and his rat pal shrinking in a basement corner while the witchy Sylvia Daisy Pouncer and her coven march down the steps.

 

We've been fans of Nikki's ever since noticing her work (including her yearly calendar, which has a cult following & which has been spotted around town at several of our favorite shops) at Buy Olympia.

 

Last year Abrams brought out a book collecting the works in all of the previous years' calendars.

Some of us in the office, though, have been aware of Nikki's work since prep-school days, and  one of us is even the proud owner of an early rare work, Sent Out On The Tracks They Built: Sinophobia in Olympia, 1886, which she collaborated on with Sarah Dougher in a more rocking incarnation.

 

Read and interview with Nikki McClure here.

Additions to the Jenny Linsky Gallery: Knit Edition

    "Captain Tinker, who was an old sailor, liked to make things and many years ago had learned to knit. He knitted a woolen scarf for Jenny—a bright red woolen scarf to go with her black fur and yellow eyes.
    "How Jenny loved that scarf! How brave she felt when she was wearing it!"

from Jenny and the Cat Club

Jenny is not the only one lucky enough to have someone knit her a bright red woolen scarf. The proprietor of the Phila*craft blog got a request for a scarf like Jenny's from her son, and—

which led to another knitter at The Runcible Bin mentioning this—

—a vest based on a drawing of Jenny done by her daughter.

Both of these make lovely additions to the small collection of Jenny Linsky-inspired photographs we've been collecting. Who could forget Lucius Monkey's spirited interpretation of the Cat Club's signature dance, the Sailor's Hornpipe?

Happy Halloween from Jenny Linsky!

Have we been infiltrated by the Badfort baddies?

A friend of Uncle's named Mike (who is currently traveling the world with his gorgeous Alaskan Malamute, Bondi) has written us a troubling note:

I fear this must be a Badfort impersonator writing to you. As Uncle has a BA he would certainly know the difference between "its" and "it's"!

But Mike, what about this, from Uncle Cleans Up?

...hardly anyone goes [to the library] except Goodman the cat. Uncle himself used to be a great reader but since taking his degree he has read very little. However, he still orders books, and for some years these books have piled up in the library. He orders at least a thousand books every year, and there is a vast pile there waiting to be put on shelves.

Maybe Uncle is just off his game. It happens to the best of us. As does compulsive book-buying!

Penelope Farmer, Charlotte Sometimes, and The Cure

The author of Charlotte Sometimes, Penelope Farmer, has a blog called rockpool in the garden. And what's more, she tells the whole story of the connection with the band The Cure and their "Charlotte Sometimes," including her backstage visit with Robert Smith. Think Farmer got rich of off the use of her book in a song? This will set you straight.

Charlotte Sometimes and The Cure

Part One
Part Two

                        Watch the video

We stand corrected

This is the first time one of our authors has commented on A Different Stripe, and, because he has pointed out an error in the post, I feel that I should reproduce Uncle's note in full:

Dear Ms Sara,

I am very pleased that the first volume of the biography of my life by J.P.Martin has been republished. I feel I must point out, however, the factual inaccuracy in your piece. Britain may well have abandoned this 'old' system of coinage but I am pleased to say that we, at Homeward, are proud to continue it's usage.

Your Sincerely

Uncle

Though I knew that Uncle had his own blog, Tales from Homeward, I was too shy to write to him directly. So I'm very glad that he wrote to us first. There are only so many volumes of Uncle's biography available and if you want to catch up with the goings-on at Homeward, this is definitely the place to look.

For instance, did you know about the program Red Idol, which follows the yearly search for "the most ardent anarchist in Badfort," or that Uncle is courting Hugh Grant to play him in his biopic?

And just to make sure that Old Monkey remains happy in his capacity as book-keeper to Uncle, NYRB will be publishing the second volume of Uncle tales, Uncle Cleans Up, next fall. We promise, would we have this nice cover if we weren't?

 

A lesson in British currency from Uncle

The first US edition of Uncle included this handy explanation of British coins. It features such useful information as "a farthing is so small that it's only used nowadays by the dwarfs." We weren't able to insert it into our edition of Uncle, but I thought I'd share it anyway. If you don't know J.P. Martin's stories about a very rich elephant named Uncle, this will give you a small taste. And, if the illustrations look familiar, it's because they're by Quentin Blake, who illustrated most of Roald Dahl's books. Here he's integrated what looks like direct rubbings of the coins into his pen-and-ink art.

You might notice a few out-of-date features to this page. First, this complicated system of dividing up the pound was abandoned in 1971. Secondly, a pound is no longer worth about three dollars. And someone should tell Uncle's bookkeeper, Old Monkey, that one million pounds is sadly no longer the equivalent of "roughly three million dollars" either.

Here's the whole spread. Click for a larger image of it.

"The Magic Lindsay"

Bibliodyssey has a post (dating from 2005) about the range of art produced by Norman Lindsay, whose Magic Pudding is part of The New York Review Children's Collection. Philip Pullman wrote the introduction, and attests that the book is "without question [his] favourite children's book." It's also been called the funniest children's book ever written.
I hadn't quite realized the extent of Lindsay's political cartooning career, or indeed, that he produced some quasi-pornographic works. There's also a great collection of Lindsay-links on the page (some of which seem expired, but worth a try).
The last image on the page is one of Lindsay's anti-war posters. All images are courtesy of the good people (really, one good man) at Bibliodyssey.

While we're on the topic of children and reading, Jessica Francis Kane has put forth a modest proposal about creating spaces to stash those demanding kids to give parents the ability to set a good example for them by picking up a book now and then. After all, gyms provide a similar service, and no one feels guilty about that. But what to call these centers? The Baby Bindery? Kidz Stackz?