Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

I feel like I have wings but my bones are bricks.

Skim is a graphic novel that follows “Skim,” a Japanese-Canadian “not-slim, would-be Wiccan goth” girl at a private girls’ school. Mariko Tamaki captures the mundane, everyday, secret things that shape people’s high school experiences; Jillian Tamaki’s sketchy lines and textures make the characters imperfect and real. Skim is about how friendships and people change. It’s about feeling awkward and confused, learning what you want and wanting what you can’t have. It’s about how high school and life shouldn’t be about fitting in, but accepting the space you make for yourself.

Sometimes when I read stories set in high school, I feel like I’m on the outside looking in, watching someone else grow up. Reading Skim, I watched myself grow up.

The NY Art Book Fair 2010 at MoMA PS1

Last weekend was the fifth annual NY Art Book Fair, a free event at MoMA PS1 in Queens.

My friend renamed it the Tote Bag Convention; there were tote bags galore, for sale and in use.

Hand-embroidered book clutches by Olympia Le-Tan.

When you turned a crank on the other side of this wooden book, the shoes “walked.”

Mugs at the Art Metropole table.

Keeping with the theme of the Fair, I bought a Nieves Books tote bag, a Vampire Rules zine, and Rome-antic Delusions.