Fairy Tale Weddings by Debbie Macomber

Fairy Tale Weddings by Debbie Macomber is temporarily $1.24 in ebook edition on Amazon and is actually two of Macomber's early books combined in one volume, one inspired by Cinderella and the other by Beauty and the Beast.

True confessions time: I read this last fall when I was deathly ill with high fevers and could barely manage anything but holding up my Kindle and trying desperately to stay well enough to avoid hospitalization. I don't remember the stories very well, but they were perfect books for when I was really sick and needed just enough content to distract me from my woes but couldn't focus on anything with too much weight. I ended up glomming a bunch of Macomber titles during those weeks after reading this one since almost anything else contributed to strange fever-induced nightmares. Macomber helped keep me from going crazy since reading is my best medicine. Strange but true. Consequently, she will always have an affectionate spot in my reading history. So buy this and save it up for your next bout with the flu or other feverish illness. (No, I didn't have the flu, but it was similar, just much, much worse with several weeks of fever and other ailments.)

Description from the publisher:

Fairy Tales Can Come True

Cindy and the Prince

Thorndike Prince--handsome, levelheaded, successful--is a high-ranking New York City executive. Cindy Territo is the janitor who cleans his office after hours. There's no reason they'd ever meet, no reason he'd even notice her--until, on a whim and a dare, Cindy crashes his company's Christmas ball. She dances with her Prince and then, like a proper Cinderella, flees at midnight, leaving her heart behind....

Some Kind of Wonderful

Beautiful inside and out, New York socialite Judy Lovin values family over fortune and fame. So when her father's business collapses and his most powerful enemy offers to help--in exchange for Judy's company--she agrees to join John McFarland on his remote Caribbean island. It isn't long before she discovers that John's far from the beast he seems to be!

About the Author

Debbie Macomber, the author of Hannah’s List, 1022 Evergreen Place, Summer on Blossom Street, 92 Pacific Boulevard, and Twenty Wishes, is a leading voice in women’s fiction. Three of her novels have scored the #1 slot on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. Debbie Macomber's Mrs. Miracle was Hallmark Channel's top-watched movie for 2009. Winner of the 2005 Quill Award for Best Romance, the prolific author has more than 140 million copies of her books in print worldwide.

Fairyland Lustre by Wedgwood, Part 1

No, I am not in the path of Hurricane Irene--best wishes to all of those of you who are--but I have witnessed an evacuation before when living in South Carolina. Additionally, Nashville survived our horrible floods last year, so my sympathies are thoroughly engaged. I pray that the loss of life and property damage is minimal.

So today I wanted to share something that has been on my list for months now. Last December when John and I traveled with my parents to visit several museums, the Birmingham Museum of Art was our first stop. I hadn't been there before and didn't know that the museum has one of the largest collections of Wedgwood in the world, the largest in the USA. I have always loved Wedgwood and brought some pieces home with me from my first trip to England several years ago. Mine are the inexpensive, common pieces of jasperware that Wedgwood is most famous for producing. But at the museum I fell in love with the Fairyland Lustre. I am sure I have seen random pieces before, but the museum had a wonderful display of several pieces which captured my heart for several minutes.

Unfortunately, photography doesn't capture the beauty of the pieces. Overall, to most tastes, in pictures they simply appear gaudy or gauche. But in person they glow. The finish shimmers and is amazing. The gold detailing shines. The colors glow. They are vibrant and feel very magical to behold in person.

They are also expensive. So I won't be owning one anytime soon. I will have to be content with my Jasperware. But now when I see a ceramics collection in a museum, I go hunting for the Fairyland Lustre and usually find one lone, representative piece hidden among the rest. Even the one book on the line is out of print and sells for about $400: Wedgwood Fairyland Lustre - The Work of Daisy Makeig-Jones.

Tomorrow I will share more about the line's history. These images are not from the Birmingham Museum of Art, but come primarily from M. S. Rau Antiques and James D. Julia Auctions.

The one above is one of my favorites.

Madhurima Latest Photoshoot Gallery

 Madhurima Latest Photoshoot Gallery, 17 more images after the break...

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Ritemail Picdump — 48 Pics

Ritemail Picdump 46 more images after the break... 

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Top 10 Highest Unfavorable Celebrites

Paris Hilton

The list of the 10 “least favorite” celebrities, as determined by who received the highest “unfavorable” ratings from Americans polled, is as follows. 09 more Celebs after the break...

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A New Form Of Entertainment — Horsmaning

 Horsemaning can be considered craziest type of planking. “Horsmaning,” or fake beheading, was a popular way of taking pictures in the 1920s. It’s currently experiencing a revival and is basically the new planking. Planking is old, Owling is boring, Try Horsemaning – The Next level of Planking. 22 more images after the break...

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Top 10 Super Power Countries of the World

01. The United States of America

United States of America is the number one super power in the world. It is the most influential country that contains the world’s strongest army and a powerful democracy, as well. United States reached to the highest powerful position after a long struggle and hard work. It is more commonly known as the Super power and it contains a highly influential media. This country is a prestigious and influential member of a number of influential bodies.

Following list has been created after conducting a number of surveys; here are the most powerful countries of the world, 09 more Countries after the break...

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Fairy Tale Desserts on Top Chef: Just Desserts

So last night I turned on the tv to discover my John had left the channel on Bravo which proved fortunate because the season premiere of Top Chef: Just Desserts was airing with a fairy tale dessert challenge! The website doesn't have any still images yet--the page was empty when I was writing this--but some videos are available for embedding, so I will share those.

I haven't watched the entire episode yet, but I saw the desserts which were inspired by Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel was disappointing since it missed the opportunity to do a charming gingerbread house. But the Jack and the Beanstalk team made me happy by referencing Milky White, the cow in Jack and the Beanstalk.

I don't know all the ways of watching the episode through various online resources, etc. I do know Bravo runs repeats ad nauseum, so if you have that, you can find it there. It might also be available on the Bravo website soon.

Here are the videos:

Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination in 2012

Regular readers know that I live in the Nashville area. I was thrilled this past week when the Frist Center for the Visual Arts announced its upcoming exhibits for 2012 and one included fairy tales. It doesn't open until February 2012 here in Nashville but it will travel to two locations in Canada after it leaves here.

From the Frist Center's Press Release:

Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination
Feb. 24–May 29, 2012
Upper-Level Galleries

Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination is an exhibition of works by contemporary artists who invent humanlike, animal or hybrid creatures to symbolize life's mysteries, desires and fears. Finding inspiration in sources ranging from Aesop's Fables to the products of genetic experimentation, the artists in the exhibition examine interactions between nature and humanity in the context of oral and written lore, psychology, ethics and visions of the future in both science and science fiction. The exhibition will include approximately 60 contemporary paintings, photographs, sculptures and video works.

This exhibition is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and curated by Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala.

The exhibition will travel to Winnipeg Art Gallery, Manitoba, Canada: June 15–Sept. 9, 2012, and to the Glenbow Art Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Sept. 28–Jan. 2, 2013.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Vanderbilt University Press.

The publisher description for the exhibition catalog provides a little more information as well as the image at the top of the post. It also includes essays from Jack Zipes and Marina Warner, superstars in fairy tale academia. Here's the description:

This catalog explores the psychological and social implications contained in the hybrid creatures and fantastic scenarios created by contemporary artists whose works will appear in the exhibition Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination, which opens at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts in February 2012. Curator Mark Scala's introductory essay focuses on anthropomorphism in the mythology, folklore, and art of many cultures as it contrasts with the dominant Western view of human exceptionalism. Scala also provides an art historical context, linking the visual fabulists of today to artists of the Romantic, Symbolist, and Surrealist periods who sought to transcend oppositions such as rationality and intuition, fear and desire, the physical and the spiritual.

Discussing how artists adapt traditional stories to give mythic form to the very real dilemmas of contemporary life, Jack Zipes's "Fairy-Tale Collisions" centers on Paula Rego, Kiki Smith, and Cindy Sherman. From a generation of women who have attained prominence since the 1980s, these artists alter fairy-tale imagery to subvert or rewrite social roles and codes.

In "Metamorphosis of the Monstrous," Marina Warner discusses works in the exhibition in the context of historical conceptions of monsters as expressions of alterity, bestiality, or sinfulness. Her reminder that contemporary monster images offer "a promise and a warning about the variety, heterogeneity, and possible combinations and recombinations in the order of things" sets the stage for Suzanne Anker's essay, punningly titled "The Extant Vamp (or the) Ire of It All: Fairy Tales and Genetic Engineering." Considering representations of hybrid bodies by Patricia Piccinini, Janaina Tschape, Saya Woolfalk, and others, which evoke imagined beings of the past as a way to envision the recombinant creatures that may lie in the future, Anker shows how artists explore the social, ethical, and future implications of biological design and enhanced evolution.

Accompanying an exhibition of contemporary art in which depictions of marvelous creatures and fantastic narratives provide both chills and delights, the essays in Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination explore the meaning of this fabulist revival through the lenses of social and art history, literature, feminism, animal studies, and science.

I am thrilled I will get to see the exhibit without traveling--and I am a Frist member, so that works, too!--and the catalog looks like a great addition to my library. If you are in the Nashville area anytime between February and May next year, include the Frist Center on your itinerary. (It's also right down the street from my high school alma mater.)

Participate in Fairy Tale Film Month on SurLaLune Blog

   

Back in the spring I started a fairy tale film week and then abandoned it when I became overwhelmed with editing Bluebeard Tales From Around the World.

   

Now I want to devote all of September for discussing fairy tales and films--including classic, recent and future--and I am asking for reader participation. What fairy tale film do you love? Which one do you detest? Which one is a guilty pleasure?

  

I don't particularly care what you write, just be sure you want it shared. You can choose an online name for it. But I want to start discussion and even awareness of fairy tale films as the onslaught of new ones begins next year again. We've had several this year, too, of course.

   

Then throughout the month of September I will share your thoughts on the blog. So technically the deadline is September 29th, but the sooner the better so I have more to share. And to sweeten the request, I will randomly select one submitter to receive a brand new copy of Jack Zipes' new book, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films. I only have one copy to give away but I may find some extra prizes if I receive enough entries to inspire me!

Send your entries to contest (at) surlalunefairytales dot com. Include a user name or how you would like to be named in the post. Sending an entry to me implies permission to reprint it on the blog. I hope this is fun and gets us all thinking about our favorite fairy tale films. I'd prefer one film discussed per post to maintain link, but I am quite flexible and want good writing and strong opinions more than anything else.

Finally, there are no right or wrong answers here. You can love Disney. You can hate it. You can love or hate any of these films. The commenters on SurLaLune tend to prefer discussion over attacks. I will moderate, too. And don't let the article about films I linked to earlier today with Jack Zipes intimidate you. It happened to coincide with my timing for this announcement. Your opinions are welcome whether or not I agree with them or anyone else does!