Sunday, September 30

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for September 30


To Norwegianity for this gem:

The Supreme Court will have to put a hold on each and every scheduled Texecution because the state of Texas is run by a pack of psychotic, dry-humping, Mexican-hating, closeted misanthropes who have their best sex when a person of color gets injected.

I just can't add a thing to that. Well done, ma hunnies.

Saturday, September 29

Burma.



Resist.

Hold the bowl upside down.


Peaceful calm resolve.

Let not human emotionalism cloud my thinking.

Do not take in the food of the military junta.

Let peace begin here, with me, but let me bring to evil not peace, but that which is stronger than a sword.

Stop crying. Stop. Crying. Now.

Incoming: A reply to Drifty

This is an interesting exchange. Driftglass, arguably the best writer in the blogosphere, has responded to my earlier post about body image and sex, which, in turn, was a response to a post at Shakespeare's Sister.

It's not getting incestual incestuous*, here, folks, but it may turn into a blogging orgy. Feel free to join in, but please keep in mind I'll be wearing these to the party, if nothing else...



Ha.

Like a lot of intelligent sexy men, Drifty is strongly influenced by the works of David Mamet, particularly Glengarry Glen Ross. He took my post and gave it a decidedly masculine turn on the dance floor using said film. I'll let you read the post your own self, there really is nothing more "intelligence is an aphrodisiac" than spending 22 minutes, sometimes less but really there's no hurry, reading Drifty's writing. Does it for me.

I've been thinking of writing a counter-post to Drifty for a while now on the whole Glengarry (some also go for The Godfather but the song is the same, I think) as the defining masculine foil. I have been thinking over and over, and not necessarily with pride in my gender, that the defining female film is actually, yeah, I have to admit,

Bridget Jones' Diary.

Bear with me. Nearly everything a woman needs to know is in this movie.

"Rule number one: look gooooorgeous."

"Resolution #1: uggg - will obviously lose 20 lbs. #2: always put last night's panties in the laundry basket. Equally important: will find nice sensible boyfriend and stop forming romantic attachments to any of the following: alcoholics, workoholics, sexaholics, commitment-phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits, or perverts. Will especially stop fantasizing about a particular person who embodies all these things."

"This is an occasion for genuinely tiny knickers."

Plus, she makes blue soup for her birthday.

And dang, you have to give a gal credit who, after having anal with Hugh Grant, teases him into doing it again.

But I have to admit: Drifty has a point. If I was back in graduate school, studying "Madwoman in the Attic" and other feminist litcrit, I'd write a paper showing how the homosocial relations with Darcy, Wickham, and indeed, Bingley (gasp!) are mirrored, like everything else in P&P, by Bridget Jones and company.

"Homo-social" is not a sexual term but relates to how men vs. men competition and one-upmanship control how men relate to and value/undervalue women. For Mark Darcy, life, meaning in this movie his relationship with Bridget Jones, is actually about whether he will ultimately win against Daniel Cleaver. Cleaver is the nemesis prick who is hyper-successful in the bedroom, office, bank, and bar. Darcy must destroy him to have any hope of manhood. This scene proves your point entirely, Drifty, I bow to your wisdom:



And you see how this movie teaches women how to walk away from the dream man who is not the man for you.

I think Drifty would agree with me that for both genders, intimate relationships are, at their best, a refuge from one's own insecurities. A man, as Drifty says,

battles every day to establish and maintain dominance and position, whether it was a question of who steps aside on the sidewalk, who sinks the eight ball, who sucks up better, who gets the office, or who leaves with the cute brunette.


Note he said brunette instead of blonde. Nice touch, hon. My hope would be that an intimate relationship with the right woman would at least soften the pain of the battle, and vice-versa for women and the pressure to be any certain way. Bridget loves Darcy ultimately because he likes her "just the way she is."

Of course there are still important lessons for men in Bridget Jones. The whole "nice boys don't kiss like that" motif.



Yes, they fucking do, though there are better lessons in how to do that sort of thing, even though he's, yeah I know, Jack Nicholson. When you watch this? Remember. The guy who wrote these words, the screenplay with this amazing statement of love that is a skillet which melts and carmelizes me slowly and sweetly? Marc Andrus, a guy with no camera time and who comes up empty on a Google image search, no one knows what car he drives or if he's "hot," he's successful but not in the spotlight. He's not married to Nancy McKeon, different guy. Interesting that people definitely know what David Mamet looks like times 37,000. Hm.



That is how you do it, my friends. Just like that.

*Thank you anonymous commenter below.

Saturday Song

For a friend who's off to a wedding today. It's good advice anytime but specially at social occasions. Channel the 1964 Mick and innocuous encounters will become provocative opportunities.

Thursday, September 27

Special K and SCHIP

I just want to say a few words about the fact that Dennis voted against SCHIP because legal immigrant children were not covered by the current bill.

I don't think anyone doubts Kucinich's street cred on wanting universal health care for all Americans. Since the bill is undoubtedly going to be vetoed, K-man could afford to "play politics" with this one. Sad to say.

I also have to admit that I play politics the same way here in Alabama. I am one of those who votes AGAINST every single constitutional amendment that comes before us voters.

Alabama needs a new constitution. Our current constitution, written in 1901, refuses home rule to every county in Alabama. That means the voters state wide must decide on basic issues as barking dogs, litter, weeds and other health and safety problems. We are nearing 800 amendments to the state constitution. The Legislature has done NOTHING to advance a new constitution, and has blocked it by scaring voters into thinking new constitution means a tax increase. Huh?

So I vote no on everything, even the 2000 amendment "allowing" mixed-race marriages (yeah that had not been enforced for a couple decades but still).

Am I for prohibiting mixed-race marriages? No way, I my own self had kids with a Norwegian.

But I won't vote for a single solitary amendment. We demand a new constitution. Am I playing politics? Yep.

Funniest comic I've heard in a long time...

He was on Fresh Air on Monday. Demitri Martin:

Mark your calendars

October 24 has been designated International Talk (?) Like a Quaker Day. Ha.

Just make sure it improves the silence.

I need to get this off my chest. Ahem.

I left this comment over at Shakespeare's Sister and dang if it wasn't a Blue Gal post its own self. This is a very frank, not necessarily safe for work post and I apologize if some of my readers are offended by its language.

may I speak frankly, Liss? Because as a dead ringer for Nigella Lawson,



...except my butt is way bigger, I have a few things to say and I've actually been thinking about this all morning.

There are men who think they need arm candy in order to impress other men. They are actually engaging in homoerotic dating, pleasing other men rather than themselves.

Then there are women who look like arm candy, but when they get a boob job it makes them look sexy but sex hurts after the surgery forever, so they are sick, sick people.

Speaking frankly, dear. Just remember that, but in this instance I really don't know how else to put it:

Then there are men who really want to titty-fuck their much-loved woman until their brains don't work any more, and women for whom that feels really really good. These women have generous bodies and happy sex partners.

Sorry I just had to get that off my chest, which is a 40DD in case anyone is wondering.

Oh the reason I thought of this was I glanced at the most recent Marie Claire magazine yesterday, and it had articles on "achieving your happy weight" and also get this, Got Curves? Style fixes that do the trick.

They can fuck me, and I don't mean in the happy-weight titty-fucking way, either.

a find

redpawmarks has written what Garrison Keillor would call "really good poems". Go say hi.

Wednesday, September 26

memo to Speaker Pelosi

Dolce and Gabbana say the riding crop is the must-have accessory for fall. The fashion team at Blue Gal agrees, and thinks you should carry one on the floor of the House and put it to use on those Democrats who vote against the health interests of American children. After all, Madam Speaker, that is your job.

Churning

There just seems to be a churning and a weird energy, whatever, around the blogs today.

I haven't been able to stop crying all morning. I'm going through my own personal rough patch but this is something else. Maybe it's Burma. The monks have been in my thought for several days now...

It's like an atmosphere, not of doom, but rather the morning of what we all know will (continue to) be a long and costly battle against the forces of darkness.

And we haven't been enough to end this administration.
Fox News continues to lie.
The war continues to kill.
The economy, stupid.
Veterans are treated like shit.
The battle seems too damn large.
And then I see a W sticker on a Lexus SUV during carpool today. I know where my crowbar is, too, but I'm running late.

Are we enough? I hate to let Kenneth Branagh answer for me, but his Henry V is his best, anyhow.



We bloggers, the modern day version of a small band of brothers. Modern-day '50's commie eggheads, more like. But still. If you are on the battlefield with me, we are family. We happy few. Sigh.

update: I posted my Quaker take on this at the sister site.

Tuesday, September 25

chat with Manila Ryce

Chats with Manila are always entertaining and often publishable. I usually get permission unless he has to drop my chat to go service one of the many female love slaves that insist on lining up outside his modest LA apartment.

me: turns out left wing religious gals are particularly hawt.
but I knew that.
Manila: why? who other than you is hot?
me: suzy...she's a Quaker...you wouldn't know her... but we're both Quakers

and we've been accused of infiltrating a peace rally with our spies
as hawt Quaker vixens.
how can a f-ing QUAKER "infiltrate" a peace rally?

Manila: i think i've seen that movie...nixon

me: No you're thinking of the one with Angie Dickinson

Manila: wrong dick i guess

me: ha

A new found respect for Janeane



BTW? Oy. Someone needs to tap Bill Maher in the head with a menorah...shilling for Israel is so 1968. But I think the fact that Janeane can say what she said, and Chris Hedges in Adbusters is doing the same, shows a tipping point in this so-called debate.

Sunday, September 23

Go say Hi

To Iowa Guy 2.0. He's from Iowa and he's endorsed Kucinich on his blog.

Nice to meetcha, IG2.0.

Another good reason to go back to bed...



I don't have a television, and if I did, I sure wouldn't be channel-surfing only to find that Hillary is on FIVE Sunday Morning talking heads shows.

I totally understand the comparative appeal of watching cheese age. I do.

Saturday, September 22

A few moments of silence for a prisoner.



Words of Power passes the word.

The All Monks Burmese Alliance is calling on the people to stand outside their homes for 15 minutes of prayer at 8:00 pm, each evening for three days, starting Sunday, 9-24-07. That would UCT/GMT 14:00:00 from 9/23/07 thru 9/25/07.


I did the math. That is 9:30 am Eastern Time, we are AHEAD of Burmese time. Sunday Monday Tuesday. Fifteen minutes. I can stop and support this.

Richard's whole post is worth the read.

Saturday Song: INXS

Friday, September 21

But wait, I actually LIKE this one!



Blue Herald has this one in their "right wing cartoon watch #24" but I think it's a dandy idea. Let MoveOn write the NY Fricking Times editorials? Ooh, that wouldn't be like letting Rupert Murdoch write television news, now, would it?

The FOX talking head "is going to have to stop me there."**

**Seriously. Somebody needs to collect the times a guest mentions Rupert on FOX and the interviewer says "I'm going to have to stop you there." It's the commanded response from upstairs whenever anyone mentions the FOX decider.

I'm voting for the smart dude. With the smart wife.



Thursday, September 20

Drifty says wear black today.



Not a problem, honey.

If my mother ruled the world....

From a meme started by Sally Field and continued by Local Crank.

Peace would reign because the only place anyone would go is the grocery store to get dog food, and the thrift store.

If you visit a foreign city, (for instance, Buffalo, New York) you visit whatever art museums are in town and then you can go home because you've "seen everything."

When you go to any art museum, anywhere in the world, you will be given a free headset with my mother's tape-recorded narration of the exhibit, including who each artist was sleeping with at the time they made said painting, with close attention to which twentieth century women artists were lesbians, but Picasso slept with them anyway.

You will also be given a coffee table book of painters she "doesn't particularly care for, but YOUR FATHER likes them."

Nude paintings are part of a great artistic tradition. Internet porn is "very suggestive."

Everyone in the world can have donuts and cold, sweet, milky coffee for breakfast. Save some for the dog.

Wednesday, September 19

Today is link to Cap'n Dyke Day.



Looks like Queen Noor got her some piiirate.

Ahoy! Link to Cap'n Dyke, say arrr a couple times, and your work is done. Or walk the plank.

Tuesday, September 18

First, Hillary, define "affordable."



Is almost a thousand dollars a month for health insurance affordable? That's what a lot of us who pay out of pocket for Blue Cross.

Since the "Council for Affordable Health Insurance" is actually an insurance industry lobby...I mean, Exxon-Mobil thinks three dollars a gallon for gas is "affordable."

I tried to find a rather milquetoast source to talk about Hillary and healthcare industry lobbyists. How about Newsweek?

...some consumer groups aren’t convinced. They look at the healthy contributions she’s received from health-care groups and wonder how far into the industry’s pocket she’s climbed. “There’s nobody in this race with her knowledge to make health care available to every American at a cheaper cost, but it would take going after the insurance industry that’s funding her candidacy,” say Jamie Court, president of consumerwatchdog.org. “I don’t know if there was a smoky back room, but her positions are certainly not threatening her cash stream, and their cash stream is helping her maintain her position as a front runner. In politics there aren’t too many coincidences.”

Monday, September 17

Salon Link and photoshop this entry from BAC...

At YIKES! Click image for larger and notice the Mona Lisa...



Salon is here at this link tonight at 9 Eastern. No special skype equipment needed. It's just typed chat. See you there!

Blue Gal vlog 9/17





[My mic was misbehaving you'll need to turn down the volume because my voicebox didn't.]

And oh man went over ten minutes again. Part two just invites everyone to salon tonight.

The article I reference is online: Neighborhood Safety and Stereotypes. (pdf format)

Sunday, September 16

Go say Hi



To Peeling Wallpaper. Since it's a poetry blog (and friend of The Aristocrats which guarantees teh cool) we'll have to wait to see if "peeling" is an adjective or a verb. I suspect a little of both.

Saturday, September 15

A reasonable facsimile
of what I'm sending to MoveOn dot Org
thanks to John McCain

Thanks, Senator McCain, for the great idea* on what to do to Move On dot Org!

Send one of these, from my own personal supply, of course, filled out appropriately:



The website is, um, http://www.moveon.org.

Click on "Donate."

*Oh, sorry, whenever I hear you say "run them out of the country" I hear, "send them money." Plus, you backpeddled after saying it, you flip-flopper.

How-to video of the month:


VideoJug: Frienditis: How To Make Yourself Into Boyfriend Material

And here's the deal:

1. Don't try to get me drunk as a way of "breaking the ice" to tell me you love me or for any other reason. One's my limit, because more than one means it's for some other reason, and I'm simply not that kind of woman. If you have something to say you'd better just say it while I'm sober.

2. And don't "try" to think about having sex with me as a way of improving your body language. If you have to try, you are not my type. Nothing happening here, move on.

3. Forget flirting, forget "boyfriend material." Any a-hole who treats my knitting like that gets castrated. It will be quick and painful. I'd really like to start with the guy in that video, if you don't mind.

Saturday Song: Yes

I love this. They got old and turned their rocking hit acoustic, but I love it. Sounds more like a love song this way. I'm sappy, I know, I know...

Friday, September 14

Hillary panders to everyone except...

...she sure didn't pander to Biblical scholars like me and Jon Stewart.

Senator Clinton at the Univision Debate re harsh penalties for those who hire illegal immigrants: "It would have criminalized the Good Samaritan. It would have criminalized Jesus Christ."

John Stewart: "Yes, imagine the world today if Jesus had been found guilty of some sort of crime..."

Watch it here, it's near the end of a video that's funny all the way through except it's also sad and pathetic.

Nevermind that we have separation of church and state in this country. We are governed by the worst panderers to fake Christianist hubris and it is damaging both our religion and our nation. Shame on you, Senator Clinton. Shame.

Don't flatter Jesus or his followers by getting his story wrong, you ignorant Senator. Oh I know what you thought I was gonna say...no, I don't use that word but I think these days "Senator" is the same and worse.



From Betty Bowers's cafepress store, of course.

UPDATE: Good thing for you Mrs. Clinton many Americans are as ignorant about the Constitution....oh nevermind I'm depressed now.

Thursday, September 13

Meanest Mommy Song for "Peeps".



The lyrics with wikipedia links is here. Yeah this song is really out of date I don't imagine Saddam is saluting the Iraqi flag where he is.

Happy One Year Blogiversary



To The Sunshine Empire.

Fashion Week at Blue Gal lasts only one day.



No leopard print lace-trimmed leggings for anyone in my house, but particularly not for my elementary school-aged daughters. Yes, these are pants for girls. Apparently there is a big push at JC Penney to make young ladies look like Peg Bundy. Not in my house.



When I see sweaters I like I usually try to figure out how to knit them myself. I don't knit with sharpened telephone poles, however. When the gauge is two stitches to the quarter mile I give up.

Oh. It's ugly, too.



Okay, the Obama campaign is six thousand, nine hundred dollars richer because of these three women, who each bought a $2300 dollar ticket to attend Oprah's fundraiser last week. I guess those tickets maxed out their Visa cards, and that's why sycophant number one had to wear her beach shoes with the silver cocktail dress. Grape and Tangerine ladies are frowning, probably because they think they paid three month's rent (okay, one month, it's Santa Barbara) to try out for a "Fruit of the Loom" TV spot.



Dang what a sweet dress. And hyuh I didn't even blink that it's a hundred and fifty fricking dollars and only goes up to size 12, I would expect as much from J. Crew. It's essentially Burda pattern 7897 and I have the fabric and thread already. Feh. (looks like Vogue 8108 would work, as well.)

Wednesday, September 12

Obama makes no sense?


WTF, Mate? Obama courtesy Shakes:

Well, look, I think it's important to understand that, after two days of testimony, here's the bottom line: That, having put an additional thirty thousand troops in, and continued the same course that we're on, we are now back to the horrendous levels of violence that we were back in June of 2006. So there's no doubt that we’ve seen some measured progress in Anbar province, primarily because the Sunni tribal leaders made a political decision there that they would work with the coalition forces. We've seen a very modest reduction in violence in Baghdad, partly because entire neighborhoods have essentially been ethnically cleansed. Those are all positive things.


He goes on to say agree that yes he wants troop withdrawals but we can't do anything to stop the President without "help from our Republican colleagues."



Memo to Obama: Stupid shit like this comes out of your mouth because you are defending an indefensible war. It's pretty easy to avoid gaffes like this if you're not wasting the world's time seeing endless war as just "one side in the debate". Pardon me for sugarcoating it, but somebody somewhere needs to stand up to these mofos. If you are running as a Democrat for President and you do not stand up to Bush, get off the fucking stage. I mean it.

You should have heard Kucinich on Air America this morning. Watch Kucinich when he says "this war is based on a lie and we should bring our troops home and rebuild Iraq with UN security forces that we fund. And no more Halliburton cheating the Iraqi people and the American taxpayer."

I'm all for listening to both sides when one side is not the endless war on Bad Arabs, brought to you by the Neocons.

It's easy to avoid mis-speaking, Senator Obama. Speak plain and tell the truth.

Deserves to go viral.

Animator vs. Animation by Alan Becker (thanks LU)


Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviantART

Good enough for me!


The Right is in a feeding frenzy over the whole MoveOn ad but when I saw one of them accuse MoveOn of "emboldening the enemy" I just said woot baby can we have another homo/hooker/page scandal by the end of the week?

Monday, September 10

photoshop this picture



Make it political. Have fun. Post it to your blog, post the link in comments.

Everyone wins.

The topic of velcro towel wraps came up at Salon. (No, honey, we were not talking about you, we were talking about the to-do list which is about you. I'll pick up your towel wrap at Penney's and make sure it gets to California in time for your shower.***)

***no that is not satire.

Salon Link

Here's the Skype salon link. See you at 9 Eastern!

It's not chat it's just typing. All are welcome. Download skype here if you need to.

I'm late, so here's a mini-blog roundup


Vlog will be late this morning, in fact I may wait until tomorrow except that tomorrow's busy too. It's that kind of week, at least for the first three days.

I have cub scouts until 8:30 eastern so I may be a few minutes late to salon but it will be set up and the link will be here.

BTW do check out Threading Water as she's vlogging now, too! (Twins.)

And Cap'n has Muffin, Cross-Dressing Bear o' Mystery, which is so wonderful it better become a regular feature. Just saying.

Skippy is embroiled in an embroilment with FDL as to whether they only link Big Box Blogs, as Skippy calls them. I loved that FDL defended themselves with: we didn't link to big blogs, hey, Down with Tyranny only gets 2000 hits per day!

I love FDL as much as the next blogger, but honeys, I can't stop laughing. Can't.

Finally, I want to tell you how much I love my children. Love them. But there are moments, moments when I wish no mess would get made in my house for five whole minutes? It's at those moments that I totally, totally get this.

Sunday, September 9

My new bra.

It's really pretty. (actual scan)



But I had to crack up at the attached product tag:



I mean, first of all, this is my first "push up" anything. It appears that cantilever technology has advanced to the point that the weight-support-to-volume-ratios have increased dramatically. It's one helluva engineering problem, trust me.

But honestly, what kind of bra marketing geniuses would use verbage usually reserved for, um, skateboarding? To describe a woman's undergarment? Oh nevermind, I found them:



Yeah this is supposed to be a panties blog and sure I got the matching panties but you'll never see them here.

Friday, September 7

Poem for Today

I was going to make this a Saturday song, but it's as much about the poem as the music. (The song is Towerblock by Julia Fordham.)

The poem is by Marianne Wade, who lost her mother (in awful stages, I imagine) to Alzheimer's, but it pertains to anyone who has ever lost a person they loved, whether they died or just went away. A beautiful song, a meaningful poem, a lovely video.

Deep thanks to Marianne for allowing me to embed this...she had embedding turned off and changed that just for me.

Thursday, September 6

Go say Hi



To Quaker Fruit Salad.

She's left for college and started her own blog in her own voice and all of a sudden her Mom's friends (and Friends, as in Religious Society of) in the blogosphere are coming to visit. Oh well.

She's as cool as her mom too so it's worth the click.

Chat with my colleague Blogenfreude....


Who blogs at Agitprop.

9:36 AM me: OMFG. want to read a good one from Pajamas?
http://www.nelsonguirado.com/--- "Things are getting better in Iraq."

9:37 AM blogenfreude: I'll raise you some wingnuts:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052362.php

9:38 AM me: why doesn't the land association just boycott the men's room?

blogenfreude: Wow - remember their mantra - more dead = success, fewer dead = success.

9:39 AM me: It's like that business model from the 80's

continuous process improvement!

now with more, I mean, less, I mean, more dead!

9:40 AM me: So do we link this guy or what? I'm torn.

blogenfreude: I think you have to, and I think you have to comment. See how long it stays up.

9:41 AM me: Good one. And I'm posting this chat. Thanks.

Update: I think qwerty's right:

But look at the category that post is listed under: Trolling the Left. Assuming the author knows what that means, the post exists just to get lefties pissed off enough to argue with him.

So I wasn't going to comment on the whole Michael Vick thing...

But Shakes has the video up where he "apologizes" and has the nerve at the end to invoke the name of Jesus.



As I said over there:

I have a friend who as an attorney has the lovely job of taking depositions to determine if her law firm will take a particular case. One rule of thumb they always use is that if the deposition includes the words Jesus or "I'm a Christian person" they won't take the case. The person is obviously full of shit.

I happen to be a "believer" and I totally endorse her reasoning. If you are praying to God for forgiveness for your sins, particularly those that are on the front page of the newspaper, Jesus seriously expects you to STFU.

worth stealing!

"George" at the open thread at Crooks last night posted this and I told him I'm stealin' it. I especially love number 4.

Comment 37:

I got to thinking about what the top ten reasons for staying in Iraq would be…

10. Haliburton is the only stock in the hedge funds that is making money

9. We can’t afford the gas to bring the troops home.

8. Everybody there has a Sunni disposition.

7. We don’t want the troops to find out how much their 401(K)s have fallen.

6. If they weren’t fighting about the war, the politicans might have time to make a real mess

5. It isn’t as thrilling to serve turkey to troops in San Mateo

4. We haven’t gotten our flowers and candy yet.


3. The troops might catch cold if they were subjected to 90 degree weather

2. We haven’t told them about New Orleans yet

1. Because George Bush says to

Tuesday, September 4

They're all yours, babycakes.



and thanks to Logan for posting the vid. Now that I'm closer to it, I can tell you, that is work.

Art and chaos day at Blue Gal

All rights reserved on this post don't use anything here please thanks.

I promised some artwork by my parents. These are webcam photos of stuff I have in my house so they're not museum quality reprints but you'll get the idea.

Ian Short - self portrait spinning on a barstool

I love this drawing my dad did...a self portrait spinning on a barstool. He made this as a study for his 2D students to show them that movement can be indicated on a flat piece of paper.

I remember my mom explaining to me about Whistler's Mother, which is actually called "Composition in Black and White: A Portrait of the Artist's Mother". My mother showed me the art teacher trick that if you cover up anything on the wall behind Whistler's Mother the painting totally changes. The same is true of my dad's drawing. There are two curved lines emanating from the hat on the upper right corner of this drawing. If you cover them, the drawing becomes much flatter and less dimensional.

What I love most about this drawing apart from its Escher-like precision is that it has multiple thumbtack holes in the corners where Dad has put it up and taken in down from one semester to the next. It's not just a drawing, it's a teaching tool.

Here's my mother's painting of the same subject:

Mandy Kaiser - portrait of Ian

Mom's work is decidedly different. She owes a lot to Picasso, of course, but her paintings are much more wickedly funny and personal too. Family portraits always include her cats and this one actually has a cut out photograph of the dog Janet, now deceased, tucked in the three dimensional pockets that emerge from the bottom of the painting. No comment on the fact that my dad's halo is made out of a casserole with french fried onion rings.

Here's a portrait she did of me when my hair was short. It's hard to see in this photo but the black thing over my shoulder is a young cat.

Mandy Kaiser - portrait of Fran

The roses that surround me and dangle from my ears are collage, cut and glued from some wrapping paper or something. Mom is amazing at using found objects. One must never get too attached to a work in progress. A face you like this morning may be turpentined away by the time you get home from school.

Speaking of Picasso there's a video of him doing just that, working on something and the interviewer is watching and Picasso looks at the painting and decides he doesn't like it and he takes a rag and wipes off the face. The interviewer is horrified. I mean, the Spanish guy just destroyed a Picasso! Except the Spanish guy IS Picasso and the painting, you see, is not a Picasso because Picasso didn't like it or think it was finished. Artist's choice.

I want to show you what my dad is working on currently but his website isn't quite ready yet. Here's a sneak peek though and this image and others will be available as blank notecards, probably primarily in art museum gift shops but also by mail. All rights reserved on this post don't use anything here please thanks.



A blog has moved.

Long time personal FOBG (how long? 26 years? NAH. NOT POSSIBLE.) qwerty has moved his blog to

http://www.qwertysqoncepts.com

Somebody wrote back to ask me if it's a marketing blog. It's not a marketing blog it's more of a media blog but his latest post is about wonky web positioning stuff. Yeah. Stick around Qwerty though, and his brilliant ex-English major sense of humor always comes out. Like when he writes about Alabama Governor Bob Riley:

The happy, grandfatherly, Reaganoid gent over there is Governor Bob Riley of Alabama. I won’t bother mentioning his party affiliation. Just dig his ‘do and you’ll know.


The author has a point.

Department of "oh no, he dinnnt."

Okay, let me get this straight. (NOT GAY! Is "not gay" the new black?)

A 74 year old retired pastor...

county commissioner...

who looks like this...



Paid for no-tell motel sex?

With a hooker?

With blank forged checks?

And he's a Republican?!?

The fact that his name is "Coy Privette." A porn producer would reject that one as too obvious. Go read more somewhere else.

PS. Oh snap! He lost his job as President of the Christian Action League. Man, where can I get some Christian Action like he got?

Update: WELL WORTH THE LISTEN: The Unger Report on telling the kids about Republicans' "special friends."

Monday, September 3

Skype Salon tonight here's the link.



Oh my Doctor Zaius is at it again....I love the photoshop, but I wonder if with the thin harem pants and the ultrasuede upholstery if my butt would stick to the divan.

Salon is here. Download Skype here if you haven't already.

See you at 9 Eastern.

Be Afraid. Be very Afraid.


I'm not going to do anything further to draw the supporters of the Presidential candidate with the initials R to the P to this blog. I haven't seen such freak fetish golden calf fixation since The Bay City Rollers were on Merv. And no I'm not gonna post any BCR youtubes here. Go get it your own self.

It should win an award.

This is the best hoax website since the GPS panties. Seriously. Be sure to watch the product demonstration video. Except, it might actually turn your stomach. OMG. Thanks L.U.

Love him. Love this.

Billy Bragg singing his theme song with updates. Watch the interview snippet at the end, too.

Good Morning. Happy Labor Day.



Two minutes and Dad? I'm not wearing too much makeup. Ha.

Saturday, September 1

Thanks, Tengrain

Tengrain of Mock Paper Scissors, out of the blue, no pun intended, sent me my own tea rose:



It's lavender, not blue, actually, and since it's called "blue girl," this blogger probably has as much claim to it as I.

But it's facing to its left, and is noted as being "an excellent bloomer with a strong constitution. Very fragrant."

Thanks Ten.

Saturday Song: India Arie