Light Seekers
The Looby list: The Northern Lights, Lightening Bugs, Light reading, and light laughs.
Hello, how was your week?
Mine was pretty uneventful, despite the promise of some natural phenomena excitement.
I have a concise bucket list. It's pretty much:
1) Eat a croissant in a cafe in Paris
2) Publish a book
3) Visit the V&A in London
4) See the Northern Lights
This week there were reports of spectacular Northern Lights appearances around the place, but nothing from our island. Nevertheless, it was less overcast late Monday night than it had been for days, so we bundled into the car and headed out into the dark to the northernmost tip of the island. On the way, we had to stop for baby deer on the road and to listen to an enormous (and I mean deafening) chorus of frogs in Phil's favourite big pond.
As we approached our viewing spot, I was reminded of when I was a young person, and my parents piled our family into our car, and we headed out to glimpse Halley's comet. I realised my parents would have definitely been out looking for the Northern Lights if they were here. Instead, they were doing something on the other side of the planet, and we were standing on a very, very dark beach at the water's edge, looking up at a very, very dark sky. We saw a soft glow on the horizon but decided it was nothing more than the lights of Vancouver reflecting up into the gathering clouds. The black water's silence and stillness started to really freak me out, especially when Lily began to talk about Cthulhus and other heinous monsters, or even just orcas, leaping from the depths to eat us. I couldn't get back into the car fast enough. Northern Lights fail, back to working on a book to publish.
I just read that eco-tourists can delight in another kind of light phenomenon this week. The annual lottery for viewing tens of thousands of Synchronous Fireflies flash their lanterns in unison in the Smokey Mountains opened on Friday. If you are one of the lucky 800, you can drive your car to the national park and watch the show.
So magical. Maybe as magical as watching the fairy penguins in Australia from the bunkers constructed on the beach.
Yikes. (I know, I know. This is probably way better for the little guys than swarms of people messing up the dunes and their burrows). Anyway - here’s the rest of this week’s list:
Drawing
When we were in Montreal, I picked up a copy of a children’s book called The Lost Picnic by b.b. cronin. It’s a beautifully illustrated “seek and find” book with elaborately detailed spreads in gorgeous colours. This film is a peek into b.b. cronin’s life and work. “I can’t imagine being anything else, I want to be drawing.”
Listening
Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s new podcast, Wiser than Me, is pretty delightful. I binge-listened to all of the episodes this week. “Candid, witty conversations with women over 70” is promised, and it delivers. Wise women (guests) so far have been actor Jane Fonda, writer Isabel Allende, chef and author Ruth Reichl, and author Fran Lebowitz. Jane Fonda was fab.
Watching
Speaking of older women, here are two things I watched this week:
Hacks on HBO. I’ve been trying to get on the treadmill a bit. What helps is saving up episodes of Hacks to watch on my phone while I run walk. I think I like season two better than one. The relationship between Debora and Ava is A+.
Judy Blume Forever - Prime. While not a groundbreaking documentary, it is an absorbing 40 minutes about a groundbreaking subject. Who didn’t read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Blubber, or Superfudge? I remember a copy of Forever (with the cover torn off) making the secret rounds of the grade 6 classroom. She was continually educating and entertaining us. What would we have done without her books? Judy was a “stay at home mom” who wrote when her children were napping or at school. She ended up writing over 25 novels which have sold over 82 million copies and have been translated into 32 languages. Her impact continues to this day, and in an era of book-banning and puritanical nonsense, it’s time there was a Judy Blume revival.
Making
On Wednesday last week, I wrote about cutaways and cross-section illustrations. This weekend I had fun creating the rough draft for a big cross-section house which will be available to peek at this week for Wednesday subscribers. Here’s another blog post with lots of great examples of cross-sections. I can’t get enough of them.
Shameless Housey
When Phil and I first moved to the suburbs before we had kids, we moved into a charming pre-war brick rental that came with the original bathroom. The colours were gorgeous. Sadly we were evicted, and the house was demolished and replaced with a McMansion behemoth…. but I have never forgotten that lovely bathroom with its deep pink tub. So now I am so excited to see that jewel-tone toilets are starting to become available again. We are not planning a bathroom renovation any time soon - not even a toilet replacement (I still have emotional scarring from the intense day when Phil, his brother, his dad and his mum all jammed into our powder room to install the last one) but much like the Northern Lights, a mint green sink is on my bucket list. Look at this lovely hotel in Paris. The Hotel Les Deux Gares interior was done by Luke Edward Hall - who has the best sense of colour and quirk. Here is a series of bathrooms from the hotel:
Reading
Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg:
“A graphic-not-quite-biography of the Brontës, and their Juvenilia. Four children; Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne have invented a world so vivid that they can step right into it. But can reality be enough, when fiction is so enticing? And What happens to an imaginary world when its creators grow up. Plots are spiralling, characters are getting wildly out of hand, and a great deal of ink is being spilt. Welcome to Glass Town.”
I totally loved this graphic novel. I have sent my copy to Amelia, who has just finished a semester of English Lit on the Brontës at Uni, but I think I will have to buy another to keep looking at.
Scrolling
Assort Hair (Amsterdam, Sydney, Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong) has a great Instagram. Mullets, curtain bangs, wolf cuts, braids, bobs and perms (for real!). Watch the brief consultation before a countdown (3, 2, 1!) to the reveal of the finished cut. You, too, can now describe your perfect hairstyle to get your ideal haircut.
Crone Cooking: Guacamole
In an effort to cook 52 essential recipes by the time I turn 52 (March 2024), I have started a little list, and this week was dish number six: Guacamole!
This is not a new recipe for me. I always made it until I discovered that our grocery store has a house-made guac which is pretty damn fine. But it’s a good one to add to the essential list. I made slightly soggy zucchini fritters this week and served them alongside salad, guacamole and sour cream. I added a little spicy taco seasoning to the fritters, so that whole meal kind of made sense.
The guacamole recipe I used was this one, and it was really delicious and super easy to whip up. I didn’t have a fresh jalapeño, but it was still good.
Next week - Roast chicken (Mmm. My favourite!)
Thanks for reading!
See you next time.
xo,
Claire
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In my British Columbian childhood, I only saw the northern lights once, during the summertime in Prince George, and it was magical - - however, I have never seen a baby deer, and that sounds just as amazing! (I also never saw whales when I was growing up in BC, but I always loved spotted ghostly jellyfish when I'd gaze down into the water from the dock on the Sunshine Coast and the glossy heads with shiny-puppy-eyes of harbour seals popping up to say hello).
Now living in London, I promise you that the V&A will not disappoint! (I have recently set a few microgoals for art excursions here, things that I want to see this year: Portrait of Omai once it is at the National Portrait Gallery, Gwen John's exhibition in Chichester, and Berthe Morisot at Dulwych Picture Gallery)
Northern lights are worth any amount of effort imo. Did you see the program a few years ago about Joanna Lumley searching for them (maybe in Norway)? Of course, they were 'fantastic' when they finally appeared. They are truly magical and enchanting to see. As kids we were told 2 stories about them: if you whistle softly they might come close to you; and if you listen very carefully, you can hear them humming.