Dear Project Runway,

We could argue I am late because I am heartbroken, but basically, I am not timely.  The print challenge.  With bonus real person inspiration.  I feel like this year especially they are so afraid to say: make an evening gown - go!  So, it's make an evening gown using three fruit from this bowl, and tying in the phase of the moon under which you were born.  And hey, it's not necessarily bad, but the inevitable meltdown when the designers get great freedom seems particularly likely this year. 

Dear Helen,

I think you are very lucky.  I thought your print was pretty pedestrian.  I thought your dress was pretty meh.  And yet they raved.  So, what do I know. 

Dear Alexandria,

That was a travesty.  You are so lucky your were safe because I cannot imagine that your garment would have at all benefited from a closer look.  At all. 

Dear Dom,

I heart you. 

Dear Braden,

I was with the other designers, did not quite trust, and yet that was an amazing result. 
Dear Alexander,
I'm sad because it was clear to me the inspiration was just giving you a mental block, so you just had a not great print, and a weird dress, and well, you know.

Dear Justin,

I confess you've lasted longer than I expected, but eh.  As you yourself said, last time you did a long dress you ended up in the bottom, eliminated, and, yeah, look at that.  Know your strengths. 

Dear Kate,

Oh Kate.  I blame lack of sleep.  Because I can kinda of sort of see that you had an idea in your head that you just had to get out, but no.  Not now.  Not this idea.  Not on this challenge.  Especially given your too poofy feedback last challenge.  I liked you better this season, but I confess, I'm okay with you being gone now, especially with this outfit.  But kudos on showing a quick lesson in how to return to a show and participate smarter and better.  You know, except for this outfit. 

Three Interesting Things

1. Have you ever wondered whether some of those online reviews you've read are from people who really went there?  Well, possibly not because the New York Attorney General's office just finished out a year long operation wherein they caught reviewers  in part by setting up pages for a yogurt shop that did not really exist. 

2. This article talked about some of the good (and less good) ways that police can and are using social media. 

3. And well, this article explains why many Sundays, I crave fatty foods.  Yes, it's all my team's fault.

Banned Books Week

It's Banned Books Week and so, I like to take a look at what's making people mad about reading these days.  The standard disclaimers are: you have the right to read what you want to read.  You even have the right to help decide what your kid(s) read.  You do not get to decide that no one can read a book.  You do not get to decide that no library should have this book. 
Also, I confess I find myself amused when a book that is optional reading gets challenged, because again, you could tell your kid, no, I don't think that should be your pick, but I'm not sure why you get to decide for everyone's kid.  Okay then.

-Fifty Shades of Grey was returned to the shelves of a public library where it was challenged. 

-The number of books banned because a character has gay parents or makes, in once case, a passing mention to the existence of gay people astounds me.  I am not unaware that there are people who are homophobic, but the attempt to erase even fictional mentions of people who are gay, is particularly strange to me.  Some titles include And Tango Makes Three, The Family Book, Totally Joe. 

-The Dirty Cowboy is a book that was removed from an elementary school library because the cowboy takes a bath, and so, while the pictures do not show any full frontal nudity, because you can tell the cowboy is naked, this is apparently inappropriate.

-500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures was removed along with other books providing Mexican history because they brainwash children into think Latinos might be or have been oppressed.

Also, hat tip to DCist for the link to the DC Public Library's Roller Girl of the Day with her favorite banned book.  Including my possible favorite roller girl name: Queen Kamamayhemmayhem. 

Find Me

I got an ARC of Romily Bernard's Find Me at RWA.  I started it during those electronics free moments on the plane and then picked it back up later.  Wow.  Wick and her sister are in foster care after their mother commit suicide round about the time their meth dealing dad got arrested.  Dad escaped the police so Wick has been planning for the inevitable day when he returns and they will need to escape, making money hacking.  Someone hands her a diary from a classmate who has just commit suicide and Wick discovers that the former friend and classmate was involved in a twisted relationship that led to her thinking suicide was her only escape.  And his next target is Wick's sister.  With the help of fellow hacker Griff, Wick needs to figure out who it is before he finds Lily and before her returned dad gets them all in worse trouble. 

I'm not sure I audibly gasped, but this was definitely a good thriller, as well as a great story.  I was scared just the right amount, and surprised (although I should warn you I almost never guess the bad people, so, it's not hard to be a better guesser than I).  It is a trilogy (I know you are shocked) but I will tell you that there is a lot of closure in this book, so while I'm looking forward to Remember Me, this won't leave you hanging.

All the Pretty Authors

This weekend was the National Book Festival, so a lot of authors were in town.  (There's also some stuff in Virginia, and some stuff this weekend in Maryland, and some people who just had DC this week on their tour stop.  It's pretty amazing week to be a book fan.) 

My brain is all all the things - yes, people said pretty things, so I will not even attempt to cover, just summarize a smidge.

1. Rainbow Rowell spoke at Politics and Prose about Fangirl, a tale of a girl with social anxiety but a rich life on the internet as a fan fic writer faces college.

2. Elizabeth Wein was impressed, given Rose Under Fire's relatively recent US release, that so many of the group had read it.  She also discussed a little the differing receptions both books have received in different countries.  (All generally good, some more rabid.)

3. At the National Book Fest, Holly Black read from The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (which I think is an excellent title) and really, the sign language interpretation of both that and later, Holly's answer about what creatures she doesn't like (zombies, they smell and they shamble) was most fascinating.  Holly also spoke of how thinking of the dissociation that watching something on TV creates, helped inspire the book. 

4. Matthew Quick talked about how Silver Linings Playbook being turned into a movie gave him an unexpected platform to discuss mental health. And that on an idyllic vacation in France was where he wrote Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock - for him the distance and contrast gave him the safety to write about this tough subject of violence in schools. 

5. Patrick Ness spoke about how he doesn't think about the other readers, just writes to please his own teen self and that if it didn't make you feel, then, what was the point?  He also maybe toyed with the camera operator who had asked him not to swear but apparently okayed the use of boobies and crap.

6. The book club got a chance to chat a little more with Holly Black, along with Megan Whalen-Turner, and Paolo Bacigalupi which was great as we talked books, and writing, and cats.

7. Tamora Pierce did a bit where she read like a doddering old reader because she likes to see the fear in the audience's eyes.  She also then went for straight Q&A which worked really well.  The tent was jam packed, the question line was long and good, and her answers were humorous and helpful.

8. Fred Hiatt wrote a YA book Nine Days inspired by the real life story of Ti-Anna Wang who is fighting to get her father released from prison in China.  She talked about the state of things with her father right now (not good) and how having a seemingly braver, cooler, fictional version of yourself out there in the world can inspire you to keep going so that real life inspired the fiction which is inspiring her real life. 

So, quite a week.