Sunday, February 27, 2005

So instead...


Instead I will post a drawing made yesterday by Our Young Artist who, since last week her father tells us, has discovered a book on how to draw comics. It was inevitable, of course, and I predict she'll pass through this how-to phase very quickly. (I am confident, she's irrepressible :) Right now,though, she's in that phase my old drawing teacher Sam called wanting to record the world around you. I didn't see what was wrong with that then and I still don't, but I think he was referring to drawings that looked "right", "faithful" to "reality." Anyway, OYA can do that with her eyes closed, I'm sure and will move on (back) to work that truly is faithful to reality. Meanwhile, we shall admire her skill as she discovers it. And post this thankfully somewhat hybrid drawing...

February gloom

I am seriously affected by SAD. I knew this when I was in New York, but it's even more obvious here. It seems also obvious to me, since I grew up in the fogs of San Francisco, that I should be impervious to such things but give me one gloomy day and I'm in a hole. Give me three, it's raining in February, and I feel like I'll never get out. All it takes is a short patch of sunshine, though, and instantly I am out. Right now, though, it seems that that will never happpen. (I wouldn't worry, You. I live in Florida.)

A part of it, I'm sure, is finishing the piece I've been working on . Perhaps some of that "little death" stuff, but also the piece itself I find so sad. I also found it was a DVD when I had been looking for a painting, but a painting just wouldn't do it. But what the DVD does is so sad. It involves new territory for me, too and, although I welcome it, it affects me apparently profoundly. So I just will be sad this weekend, there isn't much for it, I guess.

Saturday, February 26, 2005


from La Danse (2005)

from La Danse (2005)

Ahh, the weekend....

Ahhhh

Thursday, February 24, 2005





Your Seduction Style: The Coquette


You are a pro at playing...

..c'mon, you didn't really think I was going to post that, did you? :-)



Sunday, February 20, 2005

Saturday, February 19, 2005

The Future

This young woman you may well hear much of in a decade or two. She's an artist of no little merit whose talent makes her father weep. As well he should. Me too: I should draw so good!

I actually am beginning to feel like myself again

can it really have been all that flu? After some 4 weeks, I think, I am finally beginning to feel human again, like getting up and doing things. I felt okay last weekend, but I still lazed. Can I really have been lazing off that same flu? This weekend I need to get out and get things done, get off this computer, read a book. Such things. I wonder what that was?

Friday, February 18, 2005

This week's analysis





Your Brain is 66.67% Female, 33.33% Male



Your brain leans female

You think with your heart, not your head

Sweet and considerate, you are a giver

But you're tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you!


Leans?


Mark
Mark - the narrator. You stay detached from the
things that matter. You make films, but you
don't really live. But all that can change, if
you just let it.


Which RENT Character Are YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

Ah, the weekend...

Now THIS weekend I'm going to do something. Anything. I have done little or nothing for weeks. Back to me.

Now what will I do?

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Somebody just kindly emailed me...

to let me know that my pictures were coming out as thumbnails when you click on them to get a better view. Darn. I can't seem to reply to that person, but thanks. I've changed a setting on Bloggerbot and, although I can't get it any bigger than this, it should now show at least the same size as it does here, and removed from its context (not something I'm normally in favor of, but I know how you photog'rs are :-) It probably isn't a good idea to try to push them any more anyway as I've pretty much pushed them in every direction I can before I post them in the first place.

If you're still out there, click on this one and see if it isn't better for you. And thanks again.


negative space

Meanwhille...

it is nearly 4pm. I am not trained. I have heard nothing about my car.

Sigh.

Meanwhile...

I just joined Photoblogs. So of course, I don't have a photo up since I haven't made any new work in a while. So I post this random one, welcome Photoblogs! The link for stuff to see is down there on the right under "Pictures"--also scattered around in the archives, though. I haven't been on for very long...



negative space

still waiting

Got the car jumped and took it to Sears, as the guy said he couldn't guarantee it would start when I stopped it again and I sure didn't want to be in St. Petersburg at 5 pm with no start. Left ANOTHER message at work about that. Sears drove me home and promised (PROMISED) they would "try" to get it to me by noon. I really hope so, as I have a training session this afternoon....

sigh. Something is not working with the universe (mine), y'know?

waiting...

So this morning the car wouldn't start. I don't know why. It's a good car, it doesn't do this--it did it once last year too, though, I remember. I left a message at work and called the jumper, for which I'm waiting now.

They said they'd get here as soon as possible, which I figure means at least an hour since they say 45 minutes in general anyway. Car troubles have been foreign to me for 5 years or so now, surely they can't be happening again? I have a Corolla! Sigh.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Tons of new stuff this weekend.

Can you find it all?

Tell me how you drive and I'll tell you what kind of an idiot you are


un film stradale diseducativo

Self-Annihilating Sentences --- S. Gorn

"An artist without paints can't paint unless he has a canvas."

untitled

Most Happy Fella

Ted sent me this first, but I see it's been making the rounds. Nonetheless, look for fun where you find it: here's my new hero. Hallo? (Watch for the eyebrow.) Ciao.

Saturday, February 12, 2005


untitled

What is art?

"'It's not art. It's just a neat, man-made thing,' he said."

untitled

More on the recent non-bye-bye

"But in fact, the whole Emergency Alert System in the country is built on a bunch of cheesy plastic buttons that are marked with notations like 'Avalanche,' or 'Severe Thunderstorm,' or the ever-popular 'Immediate Evacuation.'"

Tu quoque, Or: What the HELL are we doing???

Franklin Park Episcopal church seeking help outside diocese: "'Nobody joins the church to go to war,' said Munz, who estimates her church will require oversight for up to five years. 'We decided we didn't want to be in a war any more. We want to get on with the ministry of the church. We know who we are as Episcopalians.'"

untitled

Awk!

"As John Mack, the dean of American oboists, put it, 'People are running around like headless chickens saying, 'Where are we going to find people?' '"

untitled

the weekend again

My first well weekend in three, woohoo!

Something has happened with Friefox (sic), I don't know what, but it suddenly reset itself and wiped out all my bookmarks and passwords and everything. So I'm building again from scratch. Forgive me if I haven't responded to something left on your page; I may not be able to find you easily.

I've been having difficulties with Semele, the notebook on which I spent most of this flu. Putting in the ipod was simultaneous to the trouble, although that seems to be working now. But Semele has amnesia. The desktop is still fine, but then I haven't been into the study in two weeks, just about, so lots of the stuff I've done is just...gone.

Ah well. Onward. Those still thinking I have a Juno address: I no longer do. To those with the verizon one, I still have that but it is a piece of junk and will not forward email ("still temporarily unavailable") so I don't check it often.

Friday, February 11, 2005

I have an ipod

I cannot make it work. I stayed awake way too late last night trying. I am going to throw it against the wall.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

An argument for retirement

"Mr. Burden also said he believed his early performance pieces had influenced Mr. Deutch. 'I'm sure the student was referencing the work I did,' he said. 'He was also trying to co-opt and demean it and parody it.'"

Saturday, February 05, 2005

the real e, today

the real e, then

So who is this impostor?

Way too weird for me. Somebody has stolen me and made me a character in a game, even choosing this icon which somewhat resembles a generic me as I looked nearly 25 years ago! How can this be??? Help me find her! I might just contact her as an emmissary from the future....Too cool!

She even signs herself as "E".


Seen everywhere, but I'll bite

Respond to this with a comment and I'll put my answers there, too. Pass it on.

A. First, recommend to me:
1. A movie:
2. A book:
3. A sound artist, song, or album/work:
4. A visual artist of any stripe:

B. Ask me three questions, no more, no less. You may ask me anything you want (however, I reserve the right to weasel out of answering if I feel its necessary!).

C. Copy and paste this in your blog.

Brakhage on the process

"And it seemed to me, when I'd finished the film, that it had more to do with the history of painting than it did with some creature of the wood. It's like as you move through the world, things change for any person. You think you're doing this, it turns out you're doing that...but on the other hand, you were doing what you originally thought you were doing. Except it's not at all what you thought you were doing."

Appropriation explained

"Therefore, anyone presenting Brakhage films with music should not advertise this as a showing of a Brakhage film, even if you add, 'With music...' You are not showing a Brakhage film. What you are doing is using a Brakhage film in the creation of some new entity, and you should give a name to that new entity (or call it 'Untitled')..."

Friday, February 04, 2005

Friday evening

I was just thinking, I have been lying in (or on) bed now--with the exception of Wednesday, half of which I spent wishing I was--for 6 1/2 days! No wonder life looks glum. It's not glum; I am!

I watched the Brakhage documentary this afternoon and liked it very much. I hadn't seen the recent work, not anything after I was in art school in the early 80s after all (except the mock strips in the Whitney catalog.) I was taken aback at where he went, how so many of us went to the same places. I wish I knew more about his direct influences on others' work, including those of us who were/are not, or not primarily filmmakers. Of course, it's pervasive for all of us, but I mean direct influences. Some parallels seem positively unbelievable, but then the parallels to my own work sometimes seem uncanny and I hadn't seen the recent work at all. How odd it all is.

And those are the first thoughts I have had in a week, if I'm not mistaken.

so here we go.....

My mother went to work in 1926 for the Peninsualar Telephone Company in Tampa, Florida which, through several permutations, has now become Verizon. She worked there for some 11 years, then took off and worked across the country and during the war and after the war and until 1951 when I made my presence known. She then became a stay at home mom, much to her horror. It was not until 1969, or thereabouts, that she was able to go back to work. She would have been 61 or 62 or so.

Sometime in those interim years social security, of which she would have been a charter member, was reconfigured and wiped out all contributions before a certain date that I'm unaware of. But my mother always says thank goodness she went back to work (which was all she ever wanted to do, really) for that last decade or she would have had no social security benefits at all. That was all she had to live on besides the proceeds of the sale of my childhood home, which put a largeish downpayment on this house and gave her some CDs, the interest on which she used to augment her social security benefits. Because she did work during the 70s, though, she had full social security benefits and suffered no diminishment there; still, she always rather resented her pre-me earnings being discounted.

So now here we go again. I, too, settled down around the age of 40 and started building a nestegg (robin's egg) toward old age that includes this house with it's varying mortgages and a job of some duration, with pension and social security and some little pre-tax money put away into an annutity that is still worth less than if I had put money under a rock every two weeks. And now our illustrious president has unveiled a vague plan to once again to redo social security.

Of course, we know this won't get ironed out for some time, if at all, but what I want to know is: he says those 55 and older will be unaffected but starting in 2009 those younger will be given the "opportunity" to put some of their social security contributions somewhere else but definitely not under the rock and meanwhile their social security benefits will be reduced.

Mind you, I realize this guy is an idiot. But you'd think using numbers altogether wouldn't be too hard for him. I don't know. Does this mean those under 55 today? does this mean those under 55 in 2009? is what he's saying that those born after 1950 will see their benefits reduced, or only those born after 1954? This, while perhaps not significant in the larger picture, makes a considerable difference to someone like, say, um, me?




In the year you were born


Harry Truman is president of the US


Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England after the death of her father, George VI


First explosion of a hydrogen device takes place at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific


Christine Jorgensen becomes the first medically and legally certified transsexual


US troops complete their pull-out from Japan


Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected President of the US


Sister Theresa becomes Mother Theresa and begins her charity work in Calcutta


Rick James, Douglas Adams, and Liam Neeson also are born


Charlotte's Web by E.B. White is published

this is news?





You Belong in 1967



1967





If you scored...

1950 - 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

1960 - 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule.

1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all!

1980 - 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

1990 - 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!



oh

i have been awake for a couple of hours. now my stomach is aching. what is going on?

i called in and left a message that i would call back as soon as possible, planning on taking a sinus pill that would make me sleep, but then i didn't take the pill thinking i might wait until the sun came up and see how the sinuses were, maybe i could go in sooner. i hope to go in this afternoon, but then i hoped that yesterday, too. this half of the week feels completely different than the first half of the week--that was mostly coldy flu-like fever. then I went in on Wednesday and now this last two days is coughing, achy head/stomach-like fever. i know i can't go in and expose people, but dam, i don't want to stay out all day again, i've got too much to do!

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Awake again

Abed all day sleeping. Blankets piled up to the ceiling fan, just about. Now I'm awake and kicking them all over the place: it's hot in here!

Hoo boy. Thank god tomorrow is Friday and I can go in to work and then collapse for 2 full days if need be. That would be my second weekend with this thing. I'm about to lose my mind. If only the headache would go with it.

Murals in Baghdad

"Fantasy images are popular with Iraqi artists, with a profusion of doves, symbolising a peace that eludes Iraq today."

It's baaak

Dam. Fever was back big time by the wee hours this morning. I was really hoping this flu was on the wane. But here I am shivering.

So I called in sick again. I am really hoping now that it will be down enough to go in for the afternoon at least. I really want to finish some things I started yesterday, and no telling how long this on-and-off-stuff will go on.

I feel like an ice cube with a bad cold. And this is in Florida.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Whine

I went to work today. I thought it was a good idea at the time and I did feel much better in the morning. But it wasn't a good idea and I feel really awful now. At least I got my 100 emails gone through and the things sent out that were piling up. But, ow, my head hurts and I'm cold and I coughed myself into a state(perhaps Nebraska?) And I have --what-- 12 hours until I'm supposed to be back there again? (Work, not Nebraska.) Ow.

Time to take the temperature again.

Evacuation of Conn: Hello? Is anyone out there?

"State police said they received no calls related to the erroneous alert."

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Another day in the life of the flu

and it's come to an end. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time goes by when I'm sick at home. I just lie here and the clock keeps going around and around. I managed to stay awake all day, at least. I put the pretty dancing people down there on the right. I like them a lot, there seem to be lots more of them than there are, and they're doing different things everytime I look. I heated up the page some too, for those of you in the frozen north. Other than that, that's all she wrote.

Awake all day, can you imagine?

Well, perhaps...

Eysenck's Test Results
Extraversion (62%) moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.
Neuroticism (59%) moderately high which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.
Psychoticism (41%) moderately low which suggests you are, at times, overly kind natured, trusting, and helpful at the expense of your own individual development (martyr complex).
Take Eysenck Personality Test (similar to EPQ-R)
personality tests by similarminds.com




Brain Lateralization Test Results
Right Brain (50%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain.
Left Brain (48%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain
Are You Right or Left Brained?
personality tests by similarminds.com



Global Personality Test Results
Stability (23%) low which suggests you are very worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.
Orderliness (43%) moderately low which suggests you are, at times, overly flexible, improvised, and fun seeking at the expense of reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment.
Extraversion (80%) high which suggests you are overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense too often of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.
Take Free Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com





Well perhaps, but who is Arthur Stewart???


and yet again

I got up and dressed this morning, and all the way to the interstate onramp before I gave in. How long is this coughing flu going to go on and I suppose it must be exacerbated by my asthma? They'll hate me at work. Thank goodness mine started at the beginning of a weekend, if I had to take 2 days off anyway! That keeps me nearly even with everybody else at least. Snarl.

On a better note: who knows what Verizon is doing, something, but their techs sure don't. I am now on Gmail and have set up easily viewable access to my other accounts (I now have two to taper off) from Firefox. This gets me out of Microsoft altogether, which Ted has been telling me to do, but now I have. If you send to the other addresses I should be able to see them and will respond via Gmail (thank you, THANK YOU, Karen!) I would forward Verizonmail to Gmail, but Verizon's mail forwarding feature is "temporariy unavailable".....