The Devil Wears Stripes

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I saved the best for last: stripes.
Someone may say I'm too much a Tim Burton's fan... but let me tell you something: I found my TNBC book, I was nine, and before Burton there was another book that left a mark on my childhood: The Striped Elf (by Maria Puncel).
But also, before books, I think I had imprinting: while in hospital, as a new born, all the jumpsuit my mum knitted me were striped (and being a very round baby, with a yellow and black striped bathing suit, that gave me for years the nickname "Maya the Bee", didn't help either!).
So, me and stripes... we have a long love story.

But apparently stripes have a long story on their own: I want this book.
Mr Author collected a series of meanings linked to striped fabric, from its appearance to present day.
From "devil's cloth" to fashion issue.
Not being able to distinguish between background and foreground was too much to take for medieval people, it was strictly forbid to wear two coloured garments (chequered patterns weren't that good neither, but stripes were worse), there were fights among monks about suits and bicolour clothes.
For years stripes were a symbol of negativity, emargination: prisoners, prostitutes, mental asylum convicteds, sailors, court jollies had striped clothes...
But slowly stripes got mercy, maybe the phenomenon of mere exposition came in.
So striped fabric was used to mean hygene, lingerie, bathing suits (ok, still not "official" garments, still quite hidden, but then again...).
Untill present day, where it is widely spread and accepted.

But let's think about it, seriously. Think about "Friend's" opening theme. Can you picture the moment where they're all sitted on the couch, in front of the fountain? They're all wearing black and white, but what's one of the first things you notice? Phoebe's striped stockings, even before her long blond locks. And Phoebe is not only my favourite one, but also the weirdo one!
For years striped stockings were halloween stuff, for witches. Then they appeared in some daily outfit of some alternative and a little outsider subcultures, and if you think about it even now, in the best case possible, a striped outfit screams "Paris", or once again "sailor"...

Yes, stripes have been cleared of all charges, but this doesn't mean they can go unnoticed!

PS
Yes, yes, they're "in" now... I'm talking to you girl, who had dressed in stripes for ages and now you're almost sick of seeing them everywhere. Listen to a muse. Stock up now, now you have the chance, now that we're submerged by them, now that they come so cheap, soon some other fashion issue will be "in" more than stripes, and you'll be exclusive again... and you'll have a pretty massive stock, because when mustard coloured flowers will be in... I shiver to the thought of it!

Badass Bunnies

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Cross my heart I didn't do this on purpose: one day I was planning future blogposts on my diary, and these special rabbits landed on a twentythird, saturday, april... checking a second time I realized it was going to be the saturday before Easter. What a lucky coincidence!?

After telling you about the meaning and the symbols connected with bunnies, to let you know that they're not just a bunch of fur and fear like we usually believe; today I want to give you "practical" examples of rabbits that are now in common knowledge, or are known for any other reason, and are endowed with a pretty badass character.
Why? Because I still, and always, think and care for those shy ones who come here, I'm just leaving them a bit quiet without pressing posts, but this one wants to be a cheer up.
Ready?

The White Rabbit (could I start from somewhere else? And check out Alice McGee's white rabbit!)
The March Hare (I couldn't skip this neither)
Easter Bunny (he brings chocolate, I said everything)
Four Hundred Rabbits
The Moon Rabbit

The biggest rabbit on earth (its feet! its feet!!!)
The Giant Pink Bunny (and it's in Italy!)
Rabbids
Labbits (*_* I want one)
Jazz JackRabbit (a rabbit that jumps, shoots, fights enemies all in a Wonderland-ish set? I had so much fun playing!)
Roger Rabbit (shave and a haircut...)
The Bunny Suicides (not exactly positive, but so funny!)
30 second bunnies
Donnie Darko's rabbit (veeeeery scary)
Lolbunnies and more (just search bunny, bunnies, rabbit ;) )
Hop (at least in the trailer)
The signature bunny that's conquering the world

All the Bunnies from "Watership Down" (beware, spoilers... -_-)
How could I forget her? Lenore in Little Bunny Foo Foo

Lastly, James Hillman in "An Essay on Pan" tells us that Pan was abandoned in the woods, as a newborn, but his father Hermes wrapped him in hare skin and took him to the Olympus, where everyone accepts him.
Hare is sacred to Aphrodites, to Eros, to the moon and to bacchanalia. Being in hare skin means that Pan belongs to that conceptual/mythical group.
Not bad, uh?

Last but not least, my very own stuffed bunny (in a very posey pose) :D

PS
Did you know, if you want a bunny as a pet, that you can adopt bunnies, instead of buying?
I'm not so keen on buying pets, so why not save a bunny from abandonment? :)

What's my favourite book?

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I'm subscribed to Anobii...
Simply because the other day, writing those ten random things about me, I realized I wouldn't know how to answer a "what's your favourite book?" question.
Because of two main reasons: there are a lot of books I've loved and that left me something special, it's very hard to choose.
But most of all I don't have in mind, always there, all the books I've read and, given my crappy memory, there a big risk I don't remember all of them properly, the risk I may forget the important ones, I would leave those out and then, to the question "Have you ever read that book?", I'd slap my forehead and say "ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh (yes, with that many letters) Of course I did! I forgot".

Embarassing, definately embarassing. I had to fix this.
So I thought -also thanx to a huge annoyan... ehm, the kind suggestions from a friend philosopher- that having a free tool to organize books with covers, generes and authors isn't that bad... when I'll be done maybe I'll be able to write down a short (?) classific.
In the meanwhile, if in the next few days I'll be a little absent minded, it will be because I'll be adding titles and stars to read books :)

Oh, and I also like the fact that you can display the books like they're sitting on a real bookshelf, I know, it's a silly thing, but it's a cute silly thing *_*
If you want to, please add Euforilla.. let's see if you can answer this readily: what's your favourite book?

PS
I've edited my post on Ubuntu. I've added a 7th good reason I forgot (speaking of crappy memory), it's about viruses :)

21days n°7 - Pronoia, Rob Brezsny

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I bought it last summer on Amazon, used, it was very cheap, and it arrived in little more than a week.
It took me a bit more to read it all... and at first I wasn't happy with the purchase. Let's say this: I couldn't care less about all the euphorical and under-drugs-effect autobiographic tales by Rob.
So at the third page of those tales I gave them up, but I continued with the rest.
By the time I finished the book I had reconsidered my first opinion (of course I've skipped all the autobiographical stuff, and to be a book that has also an ecofriendly message there are waaaaay to many blank pages, and I mean pure white -not even recycled- paper... but let's move on).
I have to say that the "Pronoia News Network" pages alone are worth the book (and if you can find it used, that's better!). Such a lengthy and abundant collection of random interesting and positive facts was completely new tome.
Anyway every time you have to close the book you feel happier and with a better mindset towards the world. And sometimes I felt like I was reading exaclty the right paragraph I needed in that moment.
The final impulse was to cut up the book in many sentences to pick up random in the morning... and it's not an idea to discard :P

Anyway, why 21 days challenge here? Well, first of all finishing the book, it's pretty thick, and with all those funny pictures it catched a good deal of interest on the train (also because it's not exactly a paperback).
And here and there you can find exercises and "compositions" and questions.
I've selected just some of them (I'm sorry, but regardless of how much I'd like to re-evaluate sad and rusty areas, I won't be dancing in the middle of a road in a badly renown part of the town, at midnight... I'm sorry), and I've done my homeworks.
If I had absolutely no idea of where to start from to have a positive mindset, this is a very good starting point... I'll be guilty of hybris, but I think I've already asked myself a bit of everything, so finding new stuff it's becoming hard. Of course it's likely I've picked out the worst exercises for me.

Well, the final review is still a bit swinging... but if you find it on sale or used I'd say it's worth reading, again "Pronoia News Network" and some other thoughts scattered through the book are worth the effort. Oh and a last advice given from Rob himself and then applied by yours truly to the book itself: don't trust anything, trust only 80% of anything people tells you, put it in a doubtful position, maybe to find confirmation about it later, but at least it will be you the one verifying and you won't be fed any dogmas ;).