News - Michelle Richmond

Tuscaloosa

It’s difficult to believe the destruction in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The place holds special meaning for me, as it was my home for four years while I was a student at the University of Alabama. The mile-wide tornado apparently picked up just in front of Bryant Denny stadium (see video of the tornado passing behind the stadium here). The student publications office, where I spent endless hours working on the Corolla, was just a stone’s throw from the stadium. How strange and sad to see a familiar and safe-seeming place reduced to rubble. While tornadoes are a common enough occurrence there, they generally came and went quickly. Upon feeling familiar stillness in the air, a kind of torpor, you would scan the skyline and listen for the train sound. If you heard a train, you knew to get inside, away from windows, preferably to a closet or a bathroom. In all my years down South, I never saw anything resembling this monster of a storm.

View local coverage at the Tuscaloosa News. See student reaction at the campus newspaper, The Crimson White. Go to West Alabama Food Bank to make a donation to help feed the survivors. You can also donate through the Red Cross.

Pretty House, Quirky House

I’m loving the new design book by Christian Lemieux, Undecorate: The No-Rules Approach to Interior Design. I’ve always sort of hated the term “decorate,” which brings to mind stuffy lamps and knick-knacks chosen by someone who’s being paid by home decor stores to talk clients into overstuffing their space with impersonal items. Having passed out of my Room and Board phase into my Anything Goes phase, I’m thrilled to find a book devoted to the art of decorating for one’s personality and lifestyle, as opposed to decorating one’s house like a showroom.

About the author: CHRISTIANE LEMIEUX is the founder and creative director of DwellStudio, a fast-growing home décor and children’s furnishings company. Known for her colorful, modern patterns, Lemieux launched a full-scale fabric line in 2010. She is also a featured design partner with Target and a frequent contributor to leading design blogs, such as Apartment Therapy and Design*Sponge. She lives in New York City with her husband, children, and her Labrador, the design studio’s mascot.

About the book: Undecorate profiles twenty homes from all over the country, revealing their owners’ love of imperfection and penchant for surprise and unusual juxtapositions while inspiring readers to follow their own whimsy and practicalities in their personal spaces. An anglophile creates an English manor in Hollywood, mixing British flea-market finds with midcentury furniture. A car fanatic turns a vintage Airstream trailer into a master bedroom and situates it in the middle of a vast industrial loft in downtown Chicago. A couple transforms a log house in Nashville, Tennessee, by blending their modern and eclectic styles with the home’s rustic charm. Though the designs differ widely, the spaces all express an open-minded attitude. Some homes embrace their contexts, while others transcend them. All are shaped by instinct and imagination and share innovative ideas that readers can use to organically and elegantly create their home to match their lifestyle and tastes.

The Untimely Death of Manning Marable

What if you spent 20 years writing your magnum opus, only to pass away the day before its publication? That’s what happened to Columbia professor Manning Marable, remembered here in the New York Times.

“For two decades, the Columbia University professor Manning Marable focused on the task he considered his life’s work: redefining the legacy of Malcolm X. Last fall he completed “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” a 594-page biography described by the few scholars who have seen it as full of new and startling information and insights.”

It is tragic that Marable will never get the chance to go out into the world and talk about the book that was so close to his heart for so long. But there is something to be said for the fact that he spent his life pursuing work about which he was passionate. Now that work is out there in the world, and, judging by the response in the New York Times and elsewhere, the book will surely find a wide audience.

Cupertino Library’s Year of Fog essay & photo contest

Today in the San Jose Mercury news, an article about the essay contest and photo contest the Cupertino Library Foundation is running in conjunction with Silicon Valley Reads 2011. Two grand prizes of $500 each and two prizes of $300 each will be given to the winners of the essay contest, and four prizes of $100 each will be given to the winners of the Holga photo contest (Holgas can be checked out at the Cupertino Library).

Essay contest: Applicants are asked to describe in 500 words or less how the themes of The Year of Fog deal with discouragement, human frailties and the power of perseverance, hope, faith and love. Essay writers are being asked to think about what role fog plays in the story. The essay contest is open to all adults living or working in the city of Cupertino or students attending Monta Vista, Homestead, Cupertino or Lynbrook high schools.

For more details, read the article in the Mercury or visit SiliconValleyReads.org.