nine cool things on a tuesday

“Autumn Festival” by Heegyum Kim.

1. Happy September!! What better way to anticipate the best season of the year than with Heegyum Kim’s delicious art. The little girl and her animal friends are celebrating fall with pumpkin cupcakes and donuts, apple pie and carrot cake. Yes, please. 🙂

Originally from South Korea, Heegyum is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer currently based in NYC, where she lives with her husband and two corgis, Fry and Mandu.

She studied Communication Design at Pratt Institute and Ewha Women’s Institute in Seoul. After working as a graphic designer in the beauty industry for ten years, she decided to shift her focus to illustration. Her favorite subjects are animals and nature depicted in a whimsical, humorous, and graphic style. She likes to explore shapes and colors to show characters’ unique personalities, and typically works in gouache and colored pencil.

She recently published her first children’s picture book, Un Hiver Chez Bleuet (Michi, 2023). This project actually began during the pandemic, when she shared a drawing of a blue bear on Instagram (she’d always loved the color blue and often made pictures entirely in blue). Her followers loved it so much that she started a Blue the Bear series, which she made into a postcard book.

Continue reading

billy collins, sir paul mccartney, and a summer blog break

wildair
via The Wheatfield

Ah, summer! Time to step away from the stove and laptop, relax, and stay cool.

Mr. Cornelius, 50-something Paddingtons, and I are looking forward to ice cream sundaes, fresh peach pie, reading trashy novels mind-enriching classics, growing basil, hanging out with relatives, tickling the ivories, and shopping for cool things.

Before we sign off for a bit, wanted to share this interesting video of former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins interviewing Sir Paul McCartney at Rollins College last October. They discuss early academic influences (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats), songwriting, poetry, celebrity, and much more. Paul shares a few naughty bits from Chaucer’s “Miller’s Tale” and sings “Blackbird” at the end.

photo by Scott Cook

I especially enjoyed hearing how the Beatles honed their craft, how John’s snarkiness complemented Paul’s optimism when it came to writing songs. Paul hasn’t lost any of his boyish charm or good looks, remains humble and grounded, and it was nice to know that had he not become a musician, he might have tried his hand at teaching English. 🙂

Can you imagine walking into class on the first day of school and seeing Paul as your teacher??!!! SCREAM.

The video is about an hour long, so you might want to bookmark this post and come back later when you have enough time to get nice and comfy, sip a tall glass of iced tea, and enjoy the meeting of two brilliant minds. The students in the video remain amazingly calm throughout. If I ever found myself in the same room with both Billy and Paul, I’d probably faint dead away. Just sayin’.

*   *   *

*

Continue reading

hotTEA of the week: Paul McCartney

The cute Beatle is 73 years old today!

 

paultea2
“Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music.”

"So, if I'm cooking, I'll be steaming vegetables, making some nice salad, that kind of stuff."
“So, if I’m cooking, I’ll be steaming vegetables, making some nice salad, that kind of stuff.”

"But you know, as a kid I would have thought of a vegetarian as a wimp."
“But you know, as a kid I would have thought of a vegetarian as a wimp.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAUL!

Will you play us out?
(What a voice, what a face, what a song!)

 

*   *   *