February 26, 2008

The Principles of Uncertainty...

Author and illustrator, Maira Kalman has published over a dozen children's books and illustrated many covers for the New Yorker. She illustrated Elements of Style, the first English grammar rulebook with pictures. She has designed fabrics for Kate Spade and Isaac Mizrahi and her expressionist colorful artwork has been featured in the Julie Saul Gallery in New York. But she is most recently known her book, "The Principles of Uncertainty," based on her illustrated weekly column for The New York Times. It is the most creatively brilliant narrative journal of her life and all its absurdities, it's quirky and lovable.

"...part documentary, part travelogue, part chapbook, and all Kalman. Her brilliant, whimsical paintings, ideas, and images-which initially appear random-ultimately form an intricately interconnected worldview, an idiosyncratic inner monologue. Kalman contends with some existential questions-What is identity? What is happiness? Why do we fight wars? And then, of course, death, love, and candy (not necessarily in that order)..."

It's like a children's book for grown ups.

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