Spontaneous Smiley Face by Ruth Kaiser

Ruth Kaiser is a woman of vision. Perhaps it is a rare form of narrowed vision that seeks out smiles. Not just any smiles, grant you, but spontaneous smiles from inanimate objects. I read about her yesterday in the Chicago Tribune on page 3. The article is accompanied by ten clever photos and recommends seeing more online, including Flickr. Look at Flickr and you'll find Toy Truck Smiley (to the right), which I mistook for a child's toilet seat. You'll also find Dinner Roll Smiley, Backpack Smiley, Door Thingy Smiley, Built-in Closet Smiley, and fifty others. She sees smiles everywhere. Look, it's a lot of fun.

Kaiser also has a website Spontaneous Smiley Face, which tells more about what she is doing. Among the pages is a call to submit your own smiley photos. The web site also tells us something that the Tribune did not - there is a book. Kaiser has self-published Spontaneous Smiley Face and her website lets you see the first fifteen pages.

I looked at the SWAN catalog (our local consortium) and at WorldCat. No library appears to own this book. I'm going to order it. I can imagine it will bring lots of chuckles to our readers.