Things I Love Tuesday: Books

Hello everyone! Not every T.I.L.T. of mine is going to be themed, but I found so many book-related things that I like that I decided to throw them all into a single post!

1. Shelfari is a great site if you want to keep track of which books you've read, are reading, and plan to read in the future. How many times have you been in the middle of a book when you suddenly realize that you've read the book before? It's sometimes really hard to keep track of which books I've read, so I like to use Shelfari to keep my affairs in order. My account's private for the most part, but you can also use the site to socialize and find people who have similar reading tastes, as well as to write reviews about books you loved or hated. I also like it because I can properly answer the question, "What are some of your favorite books?" by just pulling it up from the website.

2. Woody Allen shares his top 5 books. #1 does not surprise me at all. A lot of people list it as their favorite book, but I have yet to read it!

3. Literature.org is officially my favorite summer site. It has several classics online, including my go-to book, The Count of Monte Cristo. I love the look and feel of a real book, but since I spend a lot of time online, it's convenient and easy to access. I like that each chapter has its own link; that way I can pace myself and have a goal of steadily reading a chapter a day. Keeping it to this schedule works out great if you have little time on your hands! That way you can prevent yourself from being sucked into a book for hours on end, shirking everything you need to do (which I admit, I have been guilty of!). I recently used this website to read the classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and loved the book's wordplay. Let me know if you've read it before!

4. This image (created by Poorlydrawnlines) always makes me giggle! I remain undecided on the issue.

5. The next few things on my reading list: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Wasteland, both by T. S. Eliot. I also plan on reading Labyrinths, if I can get my hands on a copy. Daniel Radcliffe recently recommended it in an issue of Oprah, and this excerpt immediately caught my interest:

[In] "The Library of Babel" ("Borges proves that if you can write a story in ten pages, it doesn't need to be any longer"), he imagines an infinite library filled with every book written, not yet written, and every combination of words and letters in between. "The premise is that contained somewhere in these books is the meaning of life. So cults develop that walk through the library searching for it. The fact that Borges could start with such an idea—an infinite library, what would that involve?—and then take it to a logical conclusion is remarkable."

An infinite library? Sounds good to me. 

What are you planning to read this summer?

<3 Linda

Movies & Mixes Monday: Moe Meguro

Hello hello! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I can't believe it's already been a week since I created this blog!

Today I wanted to focus on the music side of things. Throughout the course of my life, I've met a fair amount of musicians, some of whom got together and played as bands. In my first year of college, I met a guy named Jojo Brandel. Throughout the year, he and his friends in Berkeley were in the process of coming up with songs for an album. I loved sitting and listening to him work out little melodies late at night, and it sometimes inspired me to get creative with my own work, too.

If there's anyone who's dedicated to rock and roll, it's Jojo. Talking to him, you can really tell how passionate he is. He wants to take any extra money and send it to help some local bands from Japan out, since he's going there next year. Jojo's band has created a Kickstarter, and though they met their goal, they're still about $500 short of the money they need to put the album (San Mai Niku) out there. They still have five days left, and I hope you, the readers, take a listen and donate. If you're into Japanese culture, or feel like listening to something different than the normal rock you hear on the radio, this album is for you.

Here's a little snippet to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

More info can be found at their Kickstarter. Another friend, Cindy Lin, lent her lovely vocals to the album as well, and so I'm writing this for the both of them, even though neither asked me to. I just really want to see this album come to fruition! 
<3 Linda

Drawing Daily is a Challenge!

Today, I decided to join http://papersparrow.typepad.com and begin drawing Daily Animal Doodles in July. It's such a great idea! I love drawing animals. The plan is to draw one animal for each day of the week-- hopefully I can stick to it! 

My goals for this challenge are:

To meet fellow artists.
To learn how to draw quickly while maintaining quality.
To improve my drawing skills.
To create a trademark style unique to myself.
To learn how to draw with little reference. I often need to look at the subject every so often if I'm depicting something real.
To get myself to upload pictures more often.
To use my sketch book more.
To stop being so negative about my own work, and to start being constructive.
To stop feeling insecure about showing my own work to other people.
To sit myself down and draw for a month!

I'll be drawing daily but more likely than not, I will not be posting up pictures daily (I am simply terrible at posting anything online on time, photo-wise). I may do a collage at the end and upload them all at once. Or maybe I'll post my favorite one each week every Saturday. 

Here's my very first drawing. This is from yesterday, Day 8: Goose. I wanted to play off of the whole "Mother Goose" thing.

Here's the Flickr Group if you want to see others' drawings! There are 44 members currently in the group. If you don't find my drawings on this blog you'll probably see them on Flickr. 


Join us! It seems like it's going to be fun.
<3 Linda