But Who's Blue? (Finally Ready for the Big Time.)

I've been sternly told to get this little baby of mine out into the world - my book BUT WHO'S BLUE? which Rick Shupper kindly shepherded into colorful print for me back in 2014, but which I've kept in the wings since then for - well, whatever reasons one does that. But that's not nice of me. And I do like to be nice when I can.

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I did the twenty drawings in this little book in 1998 for my father, who was fast fading into the final fog of Alzheimer's but who even at this late stage of that - he died in 2000 - still harbored his amazing talent for drawing and for singing. I scouted about for picture books I hoped would regale him (he'd long since stopped being able to read or, mostly, to speak, though he made lots of appealing noises and oh! that high baritone singing voice!) but they were all sort of cliché cute/stupid; none of them had anything like his imagination. So I set about doing these drawings, each of them a different color, each of them a creature who announced his or her color identity with a single line with a couple of rhymes. And they weren't just any old color or creature. Lucy was puce. Page was beige. Like lemon jello, Consuelo was yellow. Maisley was paisley and Lottie was dotty! (Linc was pink.) And so on.
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Because I'd been told the one word for which there was no rhyme in the English language was "orange" I decided to climb the Mt Everest of Rhyme and find one - and what's more, put it on the cover and have it head off the book if I did. Florence came to my rescue!

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The book is a funny little creature itself and it really wants to get into other people's hands. I've been holding it back for too long. Alas, because it's expensive to produce (all in color as it is) I have to charge rather a lot for both the larger and smaller versions of it, much more than I'd like. They come in two sizes - 8" x 6" and 6" x 4.5". The quality of color etc is really good: they're hardcover and with sort of thick board pages and I think they'll stand up to a lot of, oh, you know, dunking them in coffee and the like.
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The 8"x6" runs for $45 and the 6"x4.5" for $40. This includes postage and handling and all that stuff - unless this goes overseas - for which, alas, I'll have to ask an extra $5. Best way to pay is through PayPal. You don't have to be a member of PayPal to carry out the transaction. Just send me your email address and I'll send that to PayPal and they'll send you simple instrux for paying me through them. Too late to get these out before Christmas (they get printed separately as ordered) but they may get you through a bleak January or February day, which is probably a better time to have Linc tell you he's pink than Christmas would be. (Linc's kinda hunky.)
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So, the deed is done! Email me at GuyBlakeKett@aol.com if you want to partake of Who's Blue via PayPal. If you'd rather send me a check that's fine too, of course - just make it out to me and send it to:
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Guy Kettelhack

65 east 2nd Street, apt 3

NYC NY 10003
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If you're in New York, I'll hand-deliver it!
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cheers, and thanks. From me and my dad.

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Dad and Guy, Amityville Beach 1953

============ (here's the poem you can't read up in the quartet of pics because type is too small - it accompanies a portrait Rick Shupper did of me a few years ago. Rick is an amazing photographer, isn't he? I actually look okay in it.)

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My mother crammed me with the legacy

of everything that brought me into being:

Kettelhack to honor father,

Blake, as her surname's namesake,

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and Guy, to put the lie to any slight

suggestion that a name need ever have

a provenance that you can trace.

She could not tell me why

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she'd named me Guy

But I

through its sly

taste of anonymity

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now gladly tug along the brace of history

embodied in that Kettelhack and Blake.

I do it for her sake, my dad's and mine.

I like my name just fine.

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Guy Blake Kettelhack