The Daily Prompt from August 5th asks:
Do you have a tattoo? If so, what’s the story behind your ink? If you don’t have a tattoo, what might you consider getting emblazoned on you skin?
and this week’s photo challenge is “creepy“!
I don’t have a tattoo, but if I did it would portray something a lot of people find creepy.
To many people bats are frightening, eerie, disturbing, menacing, and literally hair-raising –
even the cutesy Halloween bats shown here!
I’ve coveted this tattoo ever since I saw it on the Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos’ blog (unfortunately no longer supporting pictures). That was way back in 2010.
I have twin nephews who go all out with tattoos – sporting full sleeves and elaborate back & even face tattoos.
Many of my other relatives (brother, nieces) also sport the odd tattoo.
I won’t be getting a tattoo anytime soon. I avoid pain.
But if I did get a tattoo it would be inspired by this:
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!
And it would look like this (not my picture – it was originally on Contrariwise so I do not know who to credit. If it is yours and you want it removed email me and I will).
I wonder how painful it would be to get a tattoo on one’s foot (and just how expensive this design would be)?
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At the beginning of August, I wrote a review of Alice Hoffman’s book The Story Sisters and mentioned how much I also loved her book Green Angel. So, I decided to give you that review today. It’s a bit long. I was very verbose when I wrote the review, just after I read the book.
There may be spoilers within.
What is a Fairy Tale? What must a story involve to be considered such? Is it enough that it has heroes vs villains, witches or evil stepmothers, magic, spells, charms, or prophetic dreams? Is every story involving quests, treasure, and family a Fairy Tale? Is every story where a problem is solved and good people live happily ever after a Fairy Tale? It used to be that a Fairy Tale was any story that started out “Once Upon A Time” and ended “Happily Ever After.” Fairy Tales have been for a very long time the province of children. Within the last twenty years or so, Fairy Tales have begun to represent any tale set in the mystical land of Fairie where even if magic does not happen there are elements within the story that are unreal or other-worldly.
If Green Angel is a Fairy Tale it is a feminist rending of one. The story focuses around Green, our heroine, who through her own fortitude, courage and resilience overcomes numerous obstacles to complete her quest. There is a smidgen of science, a hint of magic, too much hope to be a dystopia. However, does the story have enough magic in it so that we can feel comfortable calling it a Fairy Tale?
We could argue also that Green Angel is Magic Realist fiction. It is, after all, a story set within an everyday mundane world with the aura of the fantastic surrounding it. Because one cannot, after all, tattoo themselves so completely even if one were an ambidextrous contortionist. And can science explain how the body’s chemistry can turn black ink to green?
Then there are the dystopian elements that are so hard to ignore. Is the condition of Green’s life so extremely bad that there is no hope?
We bandy about these fictional terms like a talisman against the ancient gods who have forgotten us. If we can name something we can control it and thus have no reason to fear it.
If I told you only that I loved this book, that the language was perfect, that I wanted to rush right out and buy a copy for all my sisters (I have five), would you rush right out and buy a copy as well you should. If I told you only that I kept renewing the library copy so that I could still have it in my bag, on my person, until I can afford to buy my own copy of this exquisite little volume, would you understand.
Alice Hoffman wrote Green Angel. Matt Mahurin illustrates the Scholastic edition, designed by Elizabeth B. Parisi. Green pages run throughout the delicious illustrations and the book fits comfortably in the hand.
Green Angel is divided into five stories. They are Heart, Soul, Treasure, Rain and Sister. The themes are reminiscent of Cinder-Ella and Sleeping Beauty. Is this a Fairy Tale after all?
The tale told in Heart is the reality of what happened and how it happened. The tale told in Soul is what Green dreams. The tale told in Treasure tells us who and what Green loved. The tale told in Rain is what Green has lost. The tale told in Sister details the story that Green is finally able to tell.
A story involving a quest and love, with a smidgen of science, a hint of magic, and too much hope to be a dystopia.
Green and her younger sister Aurora live an ideal life above a village at the edge of a forest. Their father is honest and strong. Their mother prefers Blue Jay feathers to pearls. Aurora is wild and beautiful and can disappear like moonlight. Green is the least of them, a weed among the flowers. She is looking forward to turning sixteen. She keeps her distance from the village, is happy to be her family’s shadow. She is comfortable in the shadows, patient enough to sit for hours and watch the garden grow, see it turning green. Her family treasures her, Green says, because of her ability to grow substance from nothing … to create a garden that nourishes them all.
When catastrophe happens, Green is left alone to pick up the pieces of her life. The end of the world comes and Green survives to exist in the ashes. She must protect herself from the sooty days and parentless looters who come in the night not knowing she survived. The looters destroy the garden leaving nothing but ashes and stones. Stones that Green collects to build funeral cairns for her family. Half-blind, this task becomes her purpose, as she wishes to not feel anything. She becomes a half-dead thing in a half-dead world.
Green creates armor for herself out of her father’s old black boots and battered leather jacket. She carries stones and a slingshot everywhere. She tears the thorns from her garden’s bare rosebushes and sews them onto her clothes. She takes a needle and inks onto herself a raven, a bat, and a rose. She writes upon herself with black ink.
She loses herself in sleep and dreaming. She dreams her sister back into being, so Green herself can become, once again, patient, still waiting to be sixteen, still hopeful. Green sleepwalks through her days and each night inks tattoos upon her skin. This gives her courage to venture into the village. They thought her dead, they call her cursed. Green changes her name to Ash.
Slowly, Ash becomes friends with a neighbor, rescues a ghost white dog, feeds the birds, feeds and clothes an old nemesis, befriends a boy, dreams that her sister does not know her.
Slowly Ash changes. She trusts. She loves. Her tattoos start to change color from black to green. She replants her garden. She learns that to heal one must learn to let go.
Ash becomes Green once again. She dreams of a sister who knows her. Green cries and her tears wash the ash embers out of her eyes.
By the end of her quest Green is able to see clearly. She can see the world outside, aching and ruined, but beautiful all the same. She can miss her family, she can watch her revitalized garden grow, and she can discard her armor. Green can start to live happily ever after.
Green Angel by Alice Hoffman
New York: Scholastic, 2003
ISBN: 0439443849
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I picked up an interesting book at the library about six months ago. No, I still don’t have it out (the most time I can get with maximum renewals is nine weeks). I was going to get it out again only to discover that it is now a restricted book – which in this case means kept behind the desk and one is only allowed to read it in the library.
You’re curious now, aren’t you? What could this subversive book be?
It’s a lovely Tattoo book about what words, letters, or characters one might decide to permanently etch onto their body. One could include it in their thesis if they were exploring psychological sizing therapy.
I learnt new words.
I now know what an interrobang is.
See, it’s there to the left. It is a ! and a ? combined.
It indicates a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. It is an indicator directing your attention to such rhetorical questions as “Is the sky blue”.
I also know what an ambigram is.
This is a word or phrase that appears the same right side up or upside down. Isn’t this one pretty.
And now I can also create a ligature. And no, not that kind of ligature, this kind. . .
The sort where you attach two letters together to form a new letter. In this example I combined my lower case g with an A for anonymous. But I would suggest you do a google search for examples because mine was too bad to show. Here, instead, is a clip art one that combines the letters C and E. Which is much, much prettier than my attempt at art was!
The book also has good examples of different fonts.
Fonts like Requiem, measured and solemn,
And Futura, 
linear and straight,
And the light, exotic, dancing Samba. 
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
If I had the book to scan I could show you what font a young mystery buff might use to make The Killer Listens! look bold and sinister. Damn, I might just have to break down and buy myself a copy! 😉
Another favourite was the poet who had the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet tattooed around his ankle.
Since I can’t get the book to scan I will send you to a couple of online sites I enjoy looking at weekly.
They are NeoPagan Ink and Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos. Enjoy!
I have two nephews, twins, who are both heavily tattooed. This is where my knowledge of colours available and terminology such as sleeves comes from. One of them has a most amazing Winnie the Pooh sleeve all down his right arm. It reminds him of the happier parts of his childhood.
As well, my Big Brother Half Brother (BBHB) got a tattoo during his rebellious phrase. I saw it when it was still freshly new and painful looking. It was decades ago. I can’t remember what it was and do not know if he still has it.
The main reason I will never get a tattoo is because of the pain. Though, every once in a while, I fantasize about a Daddy Long Legs crawling into the hair above my right temple. Something small and discreet.
No matter your orientation you will not regret picking up this amazing book. Go hunt it down now and prepare for the upcoming sequel as well. Happy tattoo reading!
Body Type: Intimate Messages Etched In Flesh
by Ina Saltz
This book review has been brought to you by Weekly Geeks 2009-28 (Friday, July 24, 2009).
Because it is a long weekend up here in the wilds of Canada (plus my mom’s birthday) I am posting early.
My next post will be Sunday, August 9, 2009. See you then.
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Solitary Spinster 
Green Angel
October 4, 2009 at 8:28 pm (Book Commentary) (Alice Hoffnan, book review, dystopia, environmental issues, family, Green Angel, sisters, tattoos)
At the beginning of August, I wrote a review of Alice Hoffman’s book The Story Sisters and mentioned how much I also loved her book Green Angel. So, I decided to give you that review today. It’s a bit long. I was very verbose when I wrote the review, just after I read the book.
There may be spoilers within.
If Green Angel is a Fairy Tale it is a feminist rending of one. The story focuses around Green, our heroine, who through her own fortitude, courage and resilience overcomes numerous obstacles to complete her quest. There is a smidgen of science, a hint of magic, too much hope to be a dystopia. However, does the story have enough magic in it so that we can feel comfortable calling it a Fairy Tale?
We could argue also that Green Angel is Magic Realist fiction. It is, after all, a story set within an everyday mundane world with the aura of the fantastic surrounding it. Because one cannot, after all, tattoo themselves so completely even if one were an ambidextrous contortionist. And can science explain how the body’s chemistry can turn black ink to green?
Then there are the dystopian elements that are so hard to ignore. Is the condition of Green’s life so extremely bad that there is no hope?
We bandy about these fictional terms like a talisman against the ancient gods who have forgotten us. If we can name something we can control it and thus have no reason to fear it.
If I told you only that I loved this book, that the language was perfect, that I wanted to rush right out and buy a copy for all my sisters (I have five), would you rush right out and buy a copy as well you should. If I told you only that I kept renewing the library copy so that I could still have it in my bag, on my person, until I can afford to buy my own copy of this exquisite little volume, would you understand.
Alice Hoffman wrote Green Angel. Matt Mahurin illustrates the Scholastic edition, designed by Elizabeth B. Parisi. Green pages run throughout the delicious illustrations and the book fits comfortably in the hand.
Green Angel is divided into five stories. They are Heart, Soul, Treasure, Rain and Sister. The themes are reminiscent of Cinder-Ella and Sleeping Beauty. Is this a Fairy Tale after all?
The tale told in Heart is the reality of what happened and how it happened. The tale told in Soul is what Green dreams. The tale told in Treasure tells us who and what Green loved. The tale told in Rain is what Green has lost. The tale told in Sister details the story that Green is finally able to tell.
A story involving a quest and love, with a smidgen of science, a hint of magic, and too much hope to be a dystopia.
Green and her younger sister Aurora live an ideal life above a village at the edge of a forest. Their father is honest and strong. Their mother prefers Blue Jay feathers to pearls. Aurora is wild and beautiful and can disappear like moonlight. Green is the least of them, a weed among the flowers. She is looking forward to turning sixteen. She keeps her distance from the village, is happy to be her family’s shadow. She is comfortable in the shadows, patient enough to sit for hours and watch the garden grow, see it turning green. Her family treasures her, Green says, because of her ability to grow substance from nothing … to create a garden that nourishes them all.
When catastrophe happens, Green is left alone to pick up the pieces of her life. The end of the world comes and Green survives to exist in the ashes. She must protect herself from the sooty days and parentless looters who come in the night not knowing she survived. The looters destroy the garden leaving nothing but ashes and stones. Stones that Green collects to build funeral cairns for her family. Half-blind, this task becomes her purpose, as she wishes to not feel anything. She becomes a half-dead thing in a half-dead world.
Green creates armor for herself out of her father’s old black boots and battered leather jacket. She carries stones and a slingshot everywhere. She tears the thorns from her garden’s bare rosebushes and sews them onto her clothes. She takes a needle and inks onto herself a raven, a bat, and a rose. She writes upon herself with black ink.
She loses herself in sleep and dreaming. She dreams her sister back into being, so Green herself can become, once again, patient, still waiting to be sixteen, still hopeful. Green sleepwalks through her days and each night inks tattoos upon her skin. This gives her courage to venture into the village. They thought her dead, they call her cursed. Green changes her name to Ash.
Slowly, Ash becomes friends with a neighbor, rescues a ghost white dog, feeds the birds, feeds and clothes an old nemesis, befriends a boy, dreams that her sister does not know her.
Slowly Ash changes. She trusts. She loves. Her tattoos start to change color from black to green. She replants her garden. She learns that to heal one must learn to let go.
Ash becomes Green once again. She dreams of a sister who knows her. Green cries and her tears wash the ash embers out of her eyes.
By the end of her quest Green is able to see clearly. She can see the world outside, aching and ruined, but beautiful all the same. She can miss her family, she can watch her revitalized garden grow, and she can discard her armor. Green can start to live happily ever after.
Green Angel by Alice Hoffman
New York: Scholastic, 2003
ISBN: 0439443849
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