Sally Lloyd-Jones' Blog

happy birthday sesame street: 40 today!

2009-11-10T06:06:00.003-05:00

laser art

2009-11-09T06:06:00.005-05:00

Section of Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, captured in minute detail with laser scanners

This new cutting edge laser technology (from the Glasgow School of Art) is helping preserve and conjure up what buildings actually looked like ages ago, in effect turning the clock back on ancient sites.

As well as being a kind of time travel, it turns out to be an art form. I love that it also happens to be utterly beautiful.

More here

interview with David Suchet

2009-11-06T06:09:00.003-05:00

David (Hercule Poirot) Suchet speaks to radio host Charles Morris about why he chose to read The Jesus Storybook Bible for audio, how he selects his roles, what his faith means to him, and more... in this fabulous conversation which you can listen to here.

Week 4 storytime video: A New Beginning

2009-11-03T18:19:00.000-05:00

A New Beginning from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.

no need to have a code, just press ENTER

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on or amazon

happy ny marathon!

2009-11-01T06:17:00.007-05:00

hope all those runners remembered to fall back this morning...

Interesting Marathon Factoid:

At the 1908 Olympic Games in London, the marathon distance was changed from 25 to 26 miles to cover the ground from Windsor Castle to White City stadium, with 385 yards added on so the race could finish in front of King Edward VII's royal box.

After 16 years of extremely heated discussion, this 26.2 mile distance was established at the 1924 Olympics in Paris as the official marathon distance. -Paul Ostapuk

Makes you proud to be British...

little monkey

2009-10-31T06:24:00.001-04:00

a friend's little boy...

Week 3 storytime video: The Terrible Lie

2009-10-28T05:52:00.005-04:00

The Terrible Lie from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.

(no need for a code, just click ENTER)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on or amazon

Some Strange Satie Facts

2009-10-26T06:23:00.003-04:00

The French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) gave his piano pieces some odd titles. For instance: "Flabby Preludes (for a Dog)" (1912) and "Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear" (1903).

His scores also contain instructions to the performers like "Light as an egg," "With astonishment," or "Work it out yourself." Here some others:

In the morning, on an empty stomach
Hypocritically Crabbed and cantankerous
Moderate and very restless
Pianissimo, short of breath
With a lot of difficulty Run!

More? Here are some other Strange Satie Facts:

he carried a gun in his pocket for protection
he wore grey velvet suits and became known as "the velvet gentleman."
he detested the sun, and tried to go outside only during bleak days
he washed only with pumice stone, never soap
he "never spoke while eating, for fear of strangling himself,"
and only ate white foods. His list? Eggs, sugar, shredded bones, animal fat, salt, coconuts, rice, turnips, pastry, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish

(which one's not true (the first: it was a hammer not a gun)

At the very least this gives us all a free pass today to be as odd as we like (or even odder than usual).

Norman Foster & Dr Seuss: Constraints and Inspiration

2009-10-23T06:14:00.093-04:00

Interesting article about Norman Foster and the tiny sliver of a building he is designing in the Bowery. He has come up with an ingenius use of an elevator to do it. Foster said he had managed not to be daunted by the notion of stacking galleries with such a circumscribed footprint on top of one another; instead, Mr. Foster said, “it’s a case of the constraints finally becoming the inspiration."

The constraints that limit you can actually lead to the inspiration. Freedom isn't always about having no boundaries, it's more about being able to run free because you have them... Like sheep on a cliff... without the fence they aren't free. (Or they're free to leap off the cliff and die I suppose.) But with the fence they can be move about freely without fear... even run. Anyway all that rambling on about sheep and fences and fear to say... limits sometime make you cleverer.

Take Dr Seuss for example. The Cat In The Hat came about because his publisher challenged him to write a beginning reading book with only a limited vocabulary. It has only 223 different words. (The word cloud shows the words he used, minus "the", "and" and "I".) With a tiny pile of short words he created a classic.

Seuss found the limited vocabulary challenging and, after a period of frustration, simply chose the first two words on the word list that rhymed: "Cat" and "Hat".

Week 2 storytime video: The Beginning

2009-10-20T10:23:00.005-04:00

The Beginning: A Perfect Home from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.
(no need for a code, just click ENTER)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on or amazon

cluttered desks

2009-10-19T06:30:00.001-04:00

"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
—Albert Einstein

Uh-oh. I sort of have an empty desk. All clear and lovely. But the clutter is off to the side. Or pushed to the back. In a neat pile of clutter. So that's alright then. I think. Is it?

happy fall

2009-10-16T06:03:00.000-04:00

Week 1 storytime/video: The Story & The Song (a story a week)

2009-10-14T06:44:00.007-04:00

The Story and The Song from The Jesus Storybook Bible on Vimeo.

read by David Suchet
(no need for a code, just click ENTER or the arrow in the padlock)

look what's on itunes!

2009-10-13T12:29:00.001-04:00

if you feel like it, do please click through to itunes and write a review--it will really help it get noticed in audio books! thanks... (Oh and if you buy it, well...)

The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name (Unabridged)

Sally Lloyd-Jones

Release Date: 01 Oct 2009

Genre: Religion & Spirituality

℗ 2009 Zondervan

Clean

reality TV that's truly real...

2009-10-12T06:46:00.000-04:00

... and absolutely life-changing. how far would you walk to get to school? Watch and see how far these children's in Peru will go. A team of inventors, engineers, teachers came together to drastically change these children's lives. A friend is involved in getting this fabulous world changing movement off the ground. You can help by signing up on their site here

Maira Kalman... Latest Pursuit of Happiness

2009-10-09T07:21:00.001-04:00

excuse me, but how is it that the woman has a blue face on that bike--and I saw her. on my street. exactly her. and that dog? and the woman with the bag.

To see more of this genius's work go here

priceless treasure under your feet

2009-10-07T05:54:00.000-04:00

"A harvest of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver so beautiful it brought tears to the eyes of one expert, has poured out of a Staffordshire field - the largest hoard of gold from the period ever found."

And it was found in July in a farmer's field by Terry Herbert, an amateur metal detector who lives alone in a council flat on disability benefit, who had never before found anything remotely as valuable.

This time though he uncovered a hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold so large it will "redefine the Dark Ages." It's been declared treasure (which means it belongs to the Queen). They think it's from the late 7th or early 8th century--and that it must have belonged to a king because there is so much of it and all it's so valuable. There are 1500 pieces so far--weapons, helmet decorations, Christian crosses and hundreds still embedded in blocks of soil.

How many people I wonder walked over that bit of mud little realizing priceless treasure was under their feet. And how many times, I wonder, did people laugh and make fun of Terry Herbert out there in the fields with his metal detector. And what treasure might be lying under our feet?

Treasure buried in a field. Hmm. Reminds me of a story Someone told once ...

You can watch Terry Herbert talk about it here and read more here.

The "new and improved" Winnie The Pooh

2009-10-05T07:22:00.006-04:00

Today RETURN TO THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD is being published in the US and UK: the first authorized "sequel" to A A Milne's 1920s masterpiece. It appears to be the "new and improved" world of Winnie the Pooh--they've made Eeyore less Eeyore (he isn't such a victim, they say, but "more proactive"), they've added a Fancy Nancy-esque Otter (who loves to wear pearls)... which is all very well--but what I want to know is... why? Why is this a good idea, again?

The characters of The Hundred Acre Wood all sprung from actual real life toys that belonged to Milne's little boy... so nothing against otters or Lottie or pearls but he did he actually have an otter with pearls?

None of this bodes well. I should reserve judgment until I read the thing... (perhaps this book will drive children to the real Winnie The Pooh and away from the Disney-fied version which would be a very good thing and I'd be all for it) but apart from assuming we know better now than Milne and Shephard then (call me old fashioned, but new isn't always improved and improved isn't always better), the first question that popped into my head when I heard about Lottie and needing to add a girl character and improving Eeyore was--can you begin to imagine anyone adding a girl character into a Rembrandt painting? Or Shakespeare's Ophelia being "modified" to be less of a victim?

Not so much.

Robert Frank

2009-10-02T06:30:00.000-04:00

Swiss-born Robert Frank has a show at the Met and a film at Film Forum. He is 84 and lives in Manhattan. And no one has had a greater influence on photography in the last half-century. Though he took many photos and made many films, his reputation rests almost entirely on a single book published in 1958. The book (a collection of 83 black-and-white images of American life and now on view in a show at the Met) is an intimate visual chronicle of common people in ordinary situations drawn from several trips he made through his adopted country in the mid-1950s. Frank's favorite photo in the book is this one... Canal Street - New Orleans, 1955 He said of it, "It's rare that you have that movement and the variety of people on the street." Philippe Séclier’s documentary showing at Film Forum is called: “An American Journey: Revisiting Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’” and retraces Frank's steps using a digital camera rather than a Leica.

In the field... on the streets...

2009-09-30T08:54:00.000-04:00

A friend, David, went on a trip to Peru to be with the street boys there. He came back with these cool photos: Abraham and Jairo reading The Jesus Storybook Bible (Spanish edition).

who and what and why

2009-09-27T06:18:00.000-04:00

"We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are." –Madeline L'Engle (1918-2007)

water for schools

2009-09-25T06:37:00.000-04:00

One photo shows a boy in Ethiopia. The other a boy in the USA. The bottles show the quality of water they have to drink. No prize for guessing whose bottle is whose. Half of all schools around the world, have no access to clean water. This autumn Charity: water is launching Water for Schools--a student-led campaign to bring clean safe drinking water to at least 100 schools in developing nations in the first year. It'll take $2M to get there so they'll need everyone's help to do it... find out how you can help here. Note: 100% of your donation goes to those in need.

Red and Orange Streak

2009-09-23T06:15:00.000-04:00

"Red and Orange Streak" (1919), Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) (from the exhibition "Abstraction" at the Whitney) As Holland Cotter in the NYT said, there are two Georgia O’Keeffes. The most familiar is the who does all those cow skulls and flower paintings. I am sure it reveals me as an ignoramus, but I've never much liked them. The other O'Keeffe is the abstract painter. Her abstract works are, to me, much more interesting. But they are mostly overlooked and it's the flowers that she's known for. But the flower paintings didn't start til the 20s. Before that she'd been working on abstract drawings and, as Cotter says, they were "among the most radical creations produced in the United States at that time." Abstraction was simply the only kind of art, she said, that let her express her deepest feelings. She couldn't describe them with words. “Words and I are not good friends.” She had to paint them. Draw them. Here's another of my favorites. One of her small vertical pictures inspired by New York. "Abstraction", 1926 The show is at the Witney through Jan 17th. More here.

coney island rides

2009-09-21T06:56:00.000-04:00

PHOTO: polaroid transfer

wonder

2009-09-18T06:22:00.000-04:00

"The World does not lack for wonders, but only for wonder." –G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)