The King's Crow

Spring has sprung, the grass is green(ish), and the air is full of birdsong and…what’s that? Oh yeah, the almost constant hum of Royal Wedding coverage. I have no opinion, really, about the monarchy, but I do enjoy a little princely entertainment now and then. Not so much the younger generation (sorry Wills & Kate), but those great English Kings and Queens of yore: Colin Firth, Jonathan Rhys Myers, and of course, our current monarch, Helen Mirren. I’ll keep this post short as I am off to bed in the somewhat futile hope that a sleep surplus will help me get up at 3:00 a.m. Friday morning to watch the Show. Please enjoy these crowning moments from Royal Web~

On April 26th, Google celebrated the birthday of John James Audubon with a Google doodle. Oh no. Now everyone will know about him. Happy Birthday Mr Birdman, your illustrations are gobsmackingly gorgeous! Other than his ubiquitous collections of art (and field guides), may I recommend a couple of novels~Creation by Katherine Govier (Random House), about his rather harrowing adventures in Labrador, Canada, and a new children’s book, which I’ve yet to read but looks very promising~Okay For Now by Gary D Schmidt (Clarion). Maybe this Audubon-related book will usher in a new cultural obsession~birds. Beats vampires (but not zombies, nothing beats zombies.)

Check out this BEAUTIFUL animated short called Old Fangs by Adrien Merigeau. Thanks to Sandy for sending it my way…

For a little post-Easter fun, the worst ever Easter Bunnies. The Cakehead Loves Evil website has many more enjoyably odd posts. Highly addictive, just like Easter bunnies…of the fruit n’ nut variety.

From the New York Times, Shaun Tan’s Wild Imagination. I would say Mr Tan has few peers in the area of imagination, wild or otherwise.

Courtesy of BibliOdyssey,  something truly inspiring~ Ray Morimura geometric Japanese woodblock prints. Really beautiful stuff.

An archival post from 50 Watts: The Wonderful Wizards of Lodz: Kids’ books from Poland. Also from 50 Watts~The World’s First Fantasy Magazine: Der Orchideengarten (and its follow-up posts.) As always from this blog…cool. Really, really cool.

From the Nine Kinds of Pie blog, How to Find Good Children’s Books. Fantastic resource…missing the Governor General’s Award, but we can’t all be Canadian.

A hilarious article from The Onion on publishing. Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for pointing it out.

From the Life in Pictures series in The Guardian, the beautiful Angela Barrett picture gallery.

Lastly, though this is not art-related per se, have a listen to this incredible speech from a recent Ted Talk by Roger Ebert, one of my favourite dudes. Thanks to Crayon Creative for tweeting this king’s speech!

Next post: Happiness