Gaze upon my creation until your heart rots with jealousy.
Look at this book I made you guys it took me like six hours and it is beautiful look at it look at it look at it.
Special guest appearances by my desk and horrendously chipping nails.
Internet, I am very pleased with my creation. Granted, I do think some content on the pages are a little sloppy (halfway through I ran out of glue and had to use scotch tape. I am nothing if not resourceful.) but the crafting of the actual book turned out much better than expected. This was my first attempt with honest-to-goodness materials. (The mockup I did in class was made with poster board and sketch paper, not book board and nice paper like this.) I am happy! I may have pulled a muscle or twelve in my back and spent ten dollars on a single bridal magazine that is now tattered beyond recognition, but look what I have to show for it! This thing!
I used the slightly-modified text of a piece I wrote last year, something that will eventually be retooled and worked into my thesis. My thesis is going to be about a wedding, so I have been doing some very serious research on the subject. (Say Yes to the Dress, Bridezillas, and all of the bridal programming on WETV are significant works that require citing.) You’re probably unable to read much of the text in the pictures, internet, as I had only the camera in Molly the Mac to take these photos. So here is is! I broke it up the same way it appears in the book. Hooray!
Internet, it is no secret that I am proud of my intrepid little state. (We’re the cranberry capital of the world!) I am so proud of my state, in fact, I often forget that not everyone lives there. (A recent example: during my first Thesis Critique, I mentioned my characters were very Bergen County, and my teacher stared at me blankly before saying he had no idea what that meant. It means they have money. For anyone curious.) So let me tell you something about Newark, New Jersey, internet: it’s not a great place. In the sixties and seventies it was plagued with race riots, and still today there are major problems with gang violence, poverty, and unemployment. It’s also the largest city in New Jersey, and usually gets the attention.
Now that the history lesson is over, let me tell you something about Newark’s Mayor, Cory Booker: He is awesome. You may be saying to yourself, internet, “Oh hay, wait, I think I know that guy. Didn’t he pick a fight with Conan O’Brien and ban him from Newark Airport?” You bet your ass he did. But scraping with late-night television hosts isn’t what makes this guy a dude.
What makes this guy a dude is how much he truly loves and intends to improve his city. When he was a councilman, he would camp out in a motor home in areas where the most drug-trafficking occured. He personally patrols the streets until as late as four in the morning. Under him, Newark leads the nation in Violent Crime Reduction. Murders are down 42%, rapes 41%, and overall robberies 12%.
This is all very exciting stuff. Newark politicians have been so corrupt for so long, it’s redonk seeing someone so hands-on and committed to fixing everything. Wanna know how committed? After being elected, President Barack Obama offered Cory the chance to head the Office of Urban Affairs Policy, and he turned it down. He turned down the president of the Goddamn United States because he wasn’t done fixing Newark.
IT’S A BOOK. THAT I MADE. IN MY BOOKMAKING CLASS. THAT I’M TAKING. TO LEARN TO MAKE BOOKS.
If I have not been clear I am pretty pumped for this book, you guys.
(Also if writing doesn’t pan out, these photos would be an excellent start for my portfolio for my hand modeling career am I right or am I right.)
This is only my first try, but I’m still really excited about it. I am not a crafter. Usually if I am not immediately good at something, I burst into tears or throw something breakable against a wall and give up ever trying that thing again because obviously it’s stupid and dumb and I didn’t even want to do that thing anyway God. But I think this is pretty good! Colleen and I are going to have an adventure this weekend and seek out actual bookmaking items to use, instead of improvising with whatever art materials we possess. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. Expect more I’M A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE LOOK AT THIS THING posts in the future.
When the town re-did this area, they sold bricks that you could have messages carved into. My dad bought one. It says, “The Mullens: Living in the City of Dreams since 1986.”
Oh internet, look at how productive I am. Two posts in the same week? I am like the supreme ruler of blogging for specific and oft-ignored purposes.
I turned in my treatment for my thesis Thursday. (A treatment is basically a brief plan of what you plan to do with a project. It’s sort of like a proposal, but more specific.) Thrilling stuff! It’s a little terrifying knowing all this stuff that’s been fermenting in my brain for the past year is going to be on paper soon, and people will be able to, like, look at it. I’m really anxious to start though. I think it’ll be great, or horrible. My attitude changes on any given day.
This is not related to my thesis. It’s a piece a wrote for my “Reading and Writing in Brooklyn” class. We had to write about a “Brooklyn moment” we experienced. The ending is a little too and then this cah-raaaaazy thing happened isn’t that wild but generally I like it. So here it is. Huzzah.
Well, internet, I am infirm. You know what that means. Spending the day getting ahead in my homework so I can dedicate more time to crafting my thesis? Fuck no. It means eating a lot of toast, shotgunning several cartons of orange juice, and occasionally updating this thing I forget for long periods of time. Also watching a lot of TV on the internet. Being congested and thinking you’re going to die ROCKS!
Here’s the other piece I wrote for Bookmaking. I might make a book for it later in the year, but as I learned this weekend, making books is a horrible death trap of cutting paper and pulling the muscles in your back and getting rubber cement all over your legs and also in your hair. But I digress. Here you go.
Look internet! The school year has started and I am updating! Wowee!
Something that is exciting for this year is that I am in a bookmaking class. I’ll be learning how to fold and sew and paint paper and make it pretty enough to put my words into. Thrilling stuff! I plan on posting pictures of the books I make, and maybe even attempt to sell them to my family someday. Til then, posting the story I wrote for said class will have to do. Here it is. Huzzah school!
Oh God, Kate Beaton, I love you so much. Internet, if you have not gone through her catalogue of hilarity yet, please do so. She is The Best.
Internet, I’m sorry I haven’t been more productive in terms of new material. Summer times is Slow times, and I have just been far too busy (ie: swamped with money woes and lady-panic) to whip up anything new. Also, it is far too hot to do anything that is not lumping around in indecent clothing talking about how hot it is. Am I right.
Pretty soon, though, the school year is going to get underway, which means I’ll be working on my Senior Thesis Ooh. Which is pretty terrifying, internet, I’m not going to lie. I have my idea all lined up, and I’ve been plotting all summer. (My goal is to create a Flowchart of Characters Oh Man Excitingnot really Maryrose that’s not a very ambitious goal to set.) It’s going to be wild, internet. There will be exactly, exactly one hundred It’s a Wonderful Life references. When I get in it, I’ll start posting fragments and segments and things. Probably not the whole thing, because then you won’t be motivated to buy a copy. And then how will I make my millions how internet how.
I am trying to make this blog more interesting, internet. I’ve decided to post some of my own comics, once I actually get around to drawing them. Being an adult is haaaaaard. Speaking of being an adult, I bought Real Person perfume today. It smells like honeysuckle. Now I have a secret William Faulkner reference on my person at all times and no one is the wiser. Except Cat, who was there to explain perfume to me/have a bottle of honeysuckle-smelling liquid shoved in her face as a crazy lady staged-whispered, “IF I GET THIS I CAN BE LIKE A NEUROTIC SUICIDAL POSSIBLY INCESTUOUS VIRGIN ALL THE TIME ISN’T THAT AWESOME.”
Well, as you may well know, internet, it is Shark Week. The Best Week of All Weeks. It’s like Second Christmas, but instead of the birth of Jesus, we celebrate the possibility of being torn in half by sea tigers. Either way, shit gets ripped up, and there’s blood, and everything is awesome.
I don’t know what else to post about sharks, except that they are cool. And entire weeks dedicated to their coolness makes other weeks seem so…weak. I am having a time, learning about aquatic predators, is what I’m saying.
