[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-south-dakota-1938":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"\u003Cimg src=\"http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l27/jabberworks/southdakota1.gif\">\\r\n\\r\nOf all the picture books on my shelves, this is probably the one I pull out most often, \u003Ci>The Champion Pig\u003C/i>. It's a collection of photos gathered by Barbara Norfleet from small American photography studios, taken between 1929 up to the '60s. They're full of odd details, with a feeling of strangeness throughout the book; I'm a bit obsessed with it. I found it about eight years ago in Halcyon Books in Greenwich and I think it's out of print now, although I managed to find my sister a used copy online awhile back. I took the book to a cafe this morning and copied one of the photos for my morning warm-up sketch. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/championpigbk-426bdd7117.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nIt's actually one of the less bizarre photos, but there's something lovely and heartbreaking about this portrait: everything from the safety pin holding up the man's trousers and the half-smoked cigarette in his shirt pocket while he holds an unsmoked stogie in his mouth; I can't tell if the man is the woman's son or husband, but she looks both hard and kind at the same time, almost beautiful in a way. The guy has a real \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo_radley\">Boo Radley\u003C/a> look to him and these are probably his best clothes, which are either too big for him because he's lost weight or they're second-hand. His ears stick out in such a Norman Rockwell kind of way, emphasised by the close sides of his haircut. ...So interesting. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/southdakota2-ea7f16b51e.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cb>The Bookseller Crow\u003C/b>, which hosted part of this weekend's book party, has posted a video on \u003Ca href=\"http://booksellercrow.typepad.com/the_bedside_crow/2009/04/there-were-some-very-cool-cats-in-our-shop.html\">its website\u003C/a>. The caption reads: \\r\n\u003Ci>There were some very cool cats in our shop today: Now that was a lot of fun! What a really great bunch of people! Here are some of them drawing and winding down at the end of a packed day of events at The Crystal Palace Children's Book Festival. Look out in particular towards the end of the film for Viviane Schwarz drawing some lovely cats.\u003C/i>\\r\n\u003Clj-embed id=\"48\"/>\\r\nOoo, Viviane's posted one of the Czech \u003Ca href=\"http://vivianeschwarz.blogspot.com/2009/04/mole-and-music.html\">mole movies\u003C/a>! We used to watch those on projector at school when I was a wee tot! \\r\n\\r\nAnd thanks to Joe at Forbidden Planet for \u003Ca href=\"http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=12723\">posting a link\u003C/a> about the festival!\\r\n\\r\nOther news, a family friend in Seward, Alaska writes to say she's very excited to acquire a painting left intentionally behind in a coffee shop by \u003Ca href=\"www.bataclan.com\">Bret Bataclan\u003C/a>, who makes a habit of doing just that. Hurrah!","2009-04-28T10:45:00.000Z","south-dakota-1938",[],"south dakota, 1938",1776628732109]