In the Labyrinth

Cartel Coffee Lab Scribbles...Or How Not To Waste A Good Receipt

I am a very early riser... always have been and my husband and I usually wind up at Cartel Coffee Lab, our local coffee shop at about 6AM every morning, newspapers under our elbows, ordering cappuccinos that are pretty fabulous. One of the recent innovations at Cartel has been the use of an ipad cash register that lets one "draw" one's signature on the debit receipt form -- which is then automatically emailed to you. Once I realized I didn't actually have to sign my name...I started drawing what ever came to my half awake head -- swirling out a fast design with an index finger. Here's some of the results. A caveat: I am not an artist, but I do like to scribble on letters and now electronic receipts. I hope you all have a chance to sign onto one of these new inventions -- don't miss your chance to be creative!

Swamplandia: Karen Russell's Mythic Journeys Through the Florida Swamplands

I am pretty much in awe of some of the new young writers coming up -- in awe of their mad skills as writers, their emotional intensity, and the extraordinary way they use fairy tale and myth in modern settings. I was already impressed with Karen Russell's terrific short story collection, St Lucy's Home for Girls Who Have Been Raised By Wolves, and I have been waiting ever since I read the short story in that collection about Ava Bigtree, the young alligator wrestler of the Florida swamps, for the novel-length story of her family. And it has been well worth the wait.

Swamplandia! describes the heroic and at times hilarious effort by the Bigtree "Tribe" to maintain their way of life on a small island resort in the Florida Keys that features alligator wrestling by the extraordinary mother Hilola Bigtree, whose daring dives into a pool of alligators thrilled audiences daily. Until Hilola died young of cancer, leaving behind three grieving children and a husband whose entrepreneurial skills falter without his wife in the spotlight. As Swamplandia! and the Bigtree family begins to suffer economically and emotionally from the loss of their headliner, each member of the family struggles to find a way through grief and transformation. 

Ava, the youngest at 12 secretly practices the skill of alligator wrestling, hoping to fill her mother's spotlight. But when her older sister begins dating "ghosts" and then elopes with a ghost on a derelict dredge barge, Ava journeys through the backwater marshes with a Charon-like bird man to rescue her sister Ossi from tumbling into hell. Ava's older brother Kiwi flees to the mainland to raise much needed money for Swamplandia! by working for the competition, "World of Darkness," a sort of Dante-esque Disneyland where patrons inner tube down the throat of a monstrous Leviathan into an Inferno digestive system.

Russell's prose is rich, surreal, and evocative -- the natural world is at once gorgeous, abundant with life, and sinister with half seen dangers. Ava nurtures a rare red-scaled alligator and travels through the swamps guided by vultures. Ossi like a willing Persephone lives between the living and the dead, hoping to find her mother among the shades and settling for the love a long ago ghost. On the mainland, Kiwi confronts the ambiguities of urban life, full of new opportunities and near disasters in the mouth of a plaster whale.

It's a gorgeous novel -- and now out in paperback. I also recommend reading this terrific interview with Karen Russell about her work on this novel. 

Friday Film: Va Morar Com O Diabo

"Living with the Devil" -- I almost feel sorry for the husband here -- but I so love how the wife takes herself dancing. Ayyyi! Wish I could move like that... Samba! (Thanks to my daughter for this!)

How To Admire One Another In A Good Year

Love this engraving of Swiss (Basel) dress from the 1630s entitled "How To Admire One Another in a Good Year." Still trying to work what the young woman has concealed under her headdress -- that hoof sticking out beneath the veil is a bit alarming. What we won't do for fashion. But it does show both the wealth in their clothing and the prosperity of their comestibles!