The Body Electric

Yesterday I drove into the smart car dealership in Somerville for two reasons. One, it’s time for Bix’s annual checkup and oil change. Yes, the oil is changed just once a year in a smart car. Cool or what? Two—Todd Whitelaw, the fab-ola brand manager, emailed me with a tremendous offer.

Trade in my, now, two year old Bix (which I’ll fully own once the loan’s paid) for a lease on a 2015 electric. On top of the obvious bennies of owning an electric baby, he's offering fab incentives. I'm now in the midst of considering all the pros and cons and OOF this is gonna be a hard decision!

Pros

1) Though this car is a much more expensive model, my monthly payment would go down by more than $25 dollars.
2) No gas required. Currently I pay $35-$40 a month to feed Bix. With an electric, I’d spend, estimated, $18-$20 per month MAX to charge the battery.
3) No emissions! I won’t be contributing to the environment’s degradation—at least not when I motor about.
4) Electric cars are low maintenance.
5) They’re quiet, not that this is a big deal to this deafie but, em, quiet….that’s nice.
6) The electric ride’s smoother with much faster response time.

Cons
1) Range—Depending on weather conditions the smart electric goes just 55-85 miles on a full charge. Bix can go around 380 to 400 miles on one tank.
2) Recharge Points—I can charge up at home and there are parking lots about town with EV (electric vehicle) chargers BUT they’re not wickedly common YET. Just as I have to watch the gas gauge, I’d need to watch the charge gauge but I’d have to be a LOT more aware and observant than with gas.

Also, to charge a smart, according to cars.com (and this is based on the 2013 model), from totally empty to full would be about 14 hours at 110 volt household outlet and 6 hours at a 240 volt level two charging station.

Weather, unsurprisingly, effects the battery.

How does cold weather affect the performance and battery life?

The short answer is: cold weather can affect your electric drive’s range. Most lithium-ion batteries are affected by cold temperatures, and it may take longer to charge your smart in extreme cold. Super hot temperatures can also affect your smart’s battery. Additionally, anytime you run the heat or A/C, you’re using the battery more. So if we may be so bold as to offer some advice: whenever possible, keep your smart stored inside in a temperate climate so that things stay nice and charged.

So, if I’m driving out to see Helen in Hoosick Falls, which is approximately 190 miles away, I’d need to stop and recharge 3.8 times in cold, snowy January and 2.375 times in gorgeous, sunny May. Even with the best of weather conditions and the availability of public charging stations along the way, I couldn’t make the trip in one day. I’d need to rent a car.

The Amazing Bob and I could tool down to see The Green Miles and fam in Fairhaven on one charge (around 56 miles away) BUT we’d not be able to get back home same day. Again, we’d have to rent.

Ka-ching.

I found a great site—Chargepoint—which tells me where I can fuel up AND, in real-time, how many, if any, available stations they have.

The other expensive drawback, beyond having to rent cars when we want to go see the kids, is that our insurance would go up since the 2015 electric smart is a much more expensive car than my Bix.

I’m doing the math. I’m thinking hard on this. I really want to go electric but, given the short range on a charge and that we’re a one car famiglia, it might not make sense. YET. More research and contemplation is needed.

Walking along the craters

Last night the moon was just about full—this’ll be a Blue Moon.

Could this have anything to do with me waking at 11:30 and not being able to get back to sleep until, mebbe, two AM? I know that, after checking the clock around 1:30 AM, I decided—I’ll give me until three. If I’m still awake then, I’ll just give up on the Zs . And then, then, sleep decided to make an encore.

Had a dream where I was working at an old printshop where I’d toiled throughout my 30s. The owner was reopening a downtown branch that’d been shuttered. For some reason, I was present on this momentous occasion AND the boss was listening to my recommendations on how the store could be better laid out so that customers would flock in like seagulls to a McDonald's dumpster. AND I looked just like Pam from True Blood.  Wow. So much win!

Naturally, given the True Blood connection, there was an intensely bloody scene where the head of the person responsible for the store’s shuttering exploded—all fireworks-like—in a shower of brains and O positive.

Yeah, that’s when I woke up.

Song About the Moon—Paul Simon (full lyrics here)

If you want to write a song about the moon
Walk along the craters in the afternoon
When the shadows are deep and the light is alien
And gravity leaps like a knife off the pavement
And you want to write a song about the moon
You want to write a spiritual tune
Na na na na na na
Yeah yeah yeah
Presto, a song about the moon

 Sandwiched into the those few hours of sandman time was a bitty phantasm about an old friend. I’ve not seen or heard from Jim in eons. Maybe 15 years actually.

He was in bad shape. Depressed. Angry. Didn’t feel like speaking. He was laying in bed, face deeply planted in the pillow. I rubbed/petted his back, speaking soothing words. Something useless like: Things will get better. Life will turn around.

In real life, and I heard this from another pal I’d not connected with in forever and a half, Jim’s been going through a very hard bunch of years. The college where he scored a tenured, head-of-the-department, teaching gig ended up being chock full of heinous political douchebaggery and miscreants. His marriage fell apart. His daughter has some strong, unspecified, emotional troubles. I understand his drinking’s gone up. I understand. I wish I could do something to help, something to ease his struggle.

I’d sent him an upbeat, chock-full-of-art-commonalities email. A Hey, let’s reconnect, mon ami kind of an email. I didn’t send that missive out of pure admirable, altruistic, I-want-to-lend-a-hand/ear goodness. Fuck no. We were friends. I was crazy about the sculptures he built. Sure, I want to do whatever I can (if anything) to help him up and out of his swamp but this is also about just plain missing an old friend.

No reply. I’m concerned. Worried.

Blue Moon—The Marcels

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy...

New curtains with lights. YES, we have xmas lights up all year. They're pretty!

 Ya know, it’s really hard to stay engaged when this, THIS is what’s in the news:

Christie Vows Crackdown On Legal Weed As Soon As He's Prez
Yeah dude, sure. That makes total sense.
The gap between the haves and the have nots in this country has become Grand Canyon-esque, the middle class is evaporating but sure, focus on a outlawing a helpful, legal med instead.

North Carolina GOP Chair Ties Hillary Clinton To The KKK
Christ on herbed crostini, the folks on the “Right” just can’t help themselves—can they? They've got no fucking shame OR moral backbone. There’s no level they won’t sink to. What happened? Did they get bored with screaming Benghazi?

I hit up Politifact and History.com for enlightenment.

Details about the hate group’s founding are murky -- including the exact year it began. Some cite 1865 as its start, others say it was 1867. Historians generally agree it was founded by a handful of Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tenn. as a social fraternity and it quickly changed into a violent group that terrorized newly empowered black and white Republicans in the South.

A group including many former Confederate veterans founded the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866.

Bottom line—what was true in 1865 is not in 2015. The Republicans are no longer “The Party of Lincoln.” The Radical Republicans who, in 1865, bucked Lincoln’s leniency, and pushed for insurance that newly freed blacks would be protected and given their rights as Americans are long gone. Those Southern Democrats who joined the KKK? Yeah, they’re toast too.

So, Hasan Harnett baby doll, cut the shit, man. You show yourself as one of the more vile, empty brained, scum suckers of the "right." You’ve a grand future with the GOP. Gotta ask...couldn't you get a real, honest gig anywhere?

Senate GOP Fast-Tracks Bill To Defund Planned Parenthood

After a group of GOP senators huddled Tuesday afternoon to discuss the recently released undercover “sting" videos of Planned Parenthood, Republicans unveiled legislation to strip the family planning provider of its federal funding.

Yes, they want to defund a medical organization which does incredible good because they’re buying a trumped up lie. A very convenient lie at that. The vid’s a deceitful piece of editorial bullshit shenanigans and reactionery fever dreams but when has truth ever mattered to the “right?”

Congressional Republicans are capitalizing on right-wing media's phony outrage over the deceptively edited videos released by anti-choice conservative group Center for Medical Progress to push legislation to defund Planned Parenthood.
~snip~
In a video released on July 21, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) claimed to have recorded a Planned Parenthood official "haggling over" prices for fetal tissue donations and offering to change abortion procedure techniques "to get more intact fetuses."

American Dentist Identified As Killer Of Famed Lion In Zimbabwe

Cecil the lion was shot with a bow and arrow, then stalked for 40 hours before he was finally killed with a rifle.

A Minnesota dentist who allegedly shot and killed Zimbabwe’s most famous lion had a history of shooting big game outside of legal hunting zones.

I cried when I saw this. Walter James Palmer is one sick bastard as are all the miscreants who assist him in realizing his tiny dicked, Big Game Hunter dreams.

Palmer, you repulsive piece of used jet trash, you collection of misshapen cells, WHY are you killing these magnificent endangered beings!? You’re an abomination and I hope your life crashes and burns for this. 

Okay, I gotta go watch some cartoons, pat Coco and Rocco, take a trike ride, go work on my rabbit-headed nude painting, make The Amazing Bob some breakfast and NOT read any more news.

A Day in the Life—The Beatles

The End of the Kluge

A lamp in need

offending, big bulb

I may be an early riser, a morning person but (and this is important here so pay attention) I’m not at my most stunningly bright and adept within the first 30 minutes of wakey-wake time. No, I am not. Auto-pilot—on it.

What this meant this morning was that I should not have attempted to fix or even replace shit about the house until AFTER that first cup of coffee. Warum? Apparently I’m quite short tempered pre-caffienation.

Yesterday, I’d picked up the GE energy smart® nine year life babies for our reading lamp with two spent bulbs. Fab, right?  Wrong. They’re too big to fit under the lamp’s hood. No anount of fiddling about helped. Did ya know? Bulbs aren’t fluid, they won’t squeeze or flow into a space. Huh. Fuckers.

And then I was having a bit of a struggle with a dodgy utensil drawer. I knew it needed to be really fixed but I had a klugey, this’ll-get-me-by-until-I’ve-the-time-to-deal-with-it-properly, “fix” in place. Right. Deep down, I knew that I’d never repair the drawer myself. I’d wait until Helen and husband were here (he’s a carpenter and she’s just plain magical) next and ask them to deal with it.

dead utensil drawer

While my espresso roast was brewing (yeah, I don’t mess around—when I caffienate, I go for jet fuel), I was putting away the dishes that I so presciently washed the night before. I knew I’d hate, hate, hate seeing a sink full of cat bowls, spoons, forks and pots the next AM. The utensil drawer didn’t want to budge. It didn’t respond to Open Sesame. Bastard! I gave it a good yank and, of course, everything went flying. The floor was covered in birthday candles, straws, those little clippy things to keep bags shut and, of course, “silverware.”

Great. It’s one hell of an effective way to get me to clean and tidy the joint.

Apparently the drawer’d become home to all manner of odd bit—lids to bottles we no longer have, random rubber bands and twist ties, screws for our dishwasher which has been dead, dead, dead for over a year now and on and on. All finally in the trash now.

The Amazing Bob and I—we’re wonderfully creative souls, amusing company and crackerjack smart. Handy around the house? Not so’s anyone would ever notice.

*sigh*

I think I’ll drink some jet fuel now and stare at the morning light sprinkling and twinkling through my new drapes. That's all I wanted to do first thing this morning anyway. Not a lot to ask of the universe is it?!

At least I've got this lovely, peaceful tune in my head now:

Images of broken light
Which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe

Thoughts meander like a restless wind
Inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe

Across the Universe—The Beatles

She's Like Heroine to Me

Back in the ‘50s and ’60s, finding an inspirational, strong, nonconformist heroine (in books) wasn’t easy. I wanted one. Needed one!

If a little Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon era girl wanted to grow up to be a schoolteacher, a mommy or a nurse there were myriad examples in life and literature. If hopes and dreams differed? Eh, good luck.

I just finished a tremendously interesting book by Samantha Ellis, a British playwright, titled How to Be a Heroine: Or, What I've Learned from Reading Too Much. I swear, Ms. Ellis wrote this for me! OK, mebbe not so much. Still, the entire way through, I felt like I was sitting in a café, sipping my Jamo while having a deep convo with a kindred spirit.

I looked for heroines, role models, in books too. We moved so damn often that it was impossible to find honest to god, real ones within any of the towns where we'd land. Perhaps, even if we stayed in one place for more than a year or two, I still wouldn’t have met any potential heroines. After all, second wave feminism was just beginning.

Like Ellis, I was mad for Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables. I envied her only childness. Granted, she was a late adopted kiddle and initially unwanted (Marilla wanted a boy to help her brother with the farm. Why couldn’t a girl do that, I thought!) BUT she’d found a home, friends, love. She was able to go her own way pretty much—to be the creative, lively soul that she was meant to be.

Seemed ideal. Samantha Ellis faults author L.M. Montgomery for having Anne give up on her authorial dreams, her writing, to be a mother. Well yes, there is that. Why couldn’t Anne write AND be a mother? If I’m remembering accurately, Anne was a teacher. At least she had a noble career.

Why did women in books always have to marry and have children? For my part (and Ellis’ too I gather), I wanted a heroine who wasn't all about hooking up with some dude. I wanted one who made her own aspirations bloom for herself.

There was Nancy Drew who never grew up—a perpetual teen sleuth.

Nancy Drew, a sixteen-year-old girl in the suburb of River Heights, visits a friend and learns of a mystery, typically involving a lost treasure or a missing heir. An anonymous note slipped under her door warns her, “Keep off the case, or else”; high jinks and a car chase ensue. While sleuthing, Nancy gets knocked out by a crook, and comes to in an elegant old mansion (“Nancy saw lovely damask draperies, satin-covered sofas and chairs”), where she partakes of a refreshing tea service and cinnamon toast; renewed, she discovers a secret passageway, thanks to a cunning knob of some kind, rapidly solves the mystery, and restores social order.

In our house, her mysteries weren’t considered fine, intellectual reading. She was a guilty pleasure, read on the sly.

I was mad about Anne Frank after reading The Diary of a Young Girl.

"I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.”

But she doesn't get to live, to grow and glow. Neither, to my mind, did any of my other heroines who went on to marry the prince stand-in and have a herd of kiddles. Harsh yes BUT I really, truly did not want to have to be a mother. I wanted choices just like everyone else.

Who are the heroines for young girls now?

Hermione Granger? Katniss Everdeen? Lyra Belacqua? Buffy? Frankly, I prefer Faith, she has a much more interesting story arc.

Back to Samantha Ellis’ awesome book though—she talks about all her faves like old friends, dissecting and analyzing their lives.

Of The Little Mermaid:

“It seems that Operation Win The Prince is a go, but sadly the prince is unworthy of the Little Mermaid’s love. He pets and calls her ‘dear little foundling,’ but he doesn’t twig that she’s the one who saved him from the shipwreck…”
~snip!
“I can’t quite believe that I was so keen on a story about a mermaid who gives up her legs to get a man.”

At home, in bed with Rocco, I found myself yelling ‘I KNOW. Tell me about it!’

Poor cat ran for safety.

Of Little Women:

“I never realized before that in Little Women, each March sister is tamed, one by one, apart from Beth, who doesn’t need taming because she’s a personality-free doormat.”

And Rocco was zipping off for his secret closet hideaway as I cried ‘Tell it sistah!’

Of Gone With the Wind, she writes (amongst other things):

"The most direct result of reading Gone With the Wind again is that I have become more assiduous about using hand cream”

Heh. Yes.

She included one of my all time favorite quotes.

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”
~Nora Ephron

And yes, this tune's been playing on the old internal turntable since I picked up this fab book.

Rankling

Know what's rankling me to the moon and back this morning? I'll tell ya!

Outta shape, mega slovenly, toting-an-extra-40-pounds-of-flab, crass, muthafuckers who’ve the stunningly UN-self aware temerity to slam women for being other than svelte, blond, smooth skinned and depilated back to a pre-K state.

I imagine we’ve all met this brand of ignoramus. The type of guy who thinks it’s high toned comedy to sneeringly point out a woman’s extra baggage, in the lowest, most junior high bully kind of way. He’ll have a good-ol’-boys hardy-har-har with his buds about this person who visually offends him so mightily. Oh and if the full figured babe happens to be within hearing—well, boyhowdy, that makes it ALL the more funny! The dude must figure he’s the second coming of Andrew Dice Clay. Guess what smegma breath? Clay wasn’t funny either.

Christ I’d like to  hold a mirror up to these asswipes and ask them to have a real solid view of themselves. The insulter’s visage would make even Earnest Borgnine's mug attractive. His figure makes Chris Farley (RIP) seem spruce and studly.

But I don’t—hold the mirror up that is. Warum? Eh, like good ol’ G.B. Shaw said:

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

palate cleansing prettiness

Why’s this come up? Did someone give me shit about my weight? No. Rather, no one besides myself (I’m working on it, I’m working on it and NOT because I want to look like Penelope Cruz {hells, that’d be sweet though!} I’m losing the weight because it’s the healthier track to be on). A friend recently told me that she was the recipient of a Dice-Clay-wannabe epithet. I didn’t hear it (of course and duh) but if I had I'd've gone full metal Boudicca on his flabby ass.

Christ on a tamari, seaweed brown rice cake (mmmmm), do these fools not see that they make complete, blockheaded horses asses of themselves when they diss someone for their appearance? Perhaps they’re admirers of that spectacularly dimwitted, draft dodging, vile piece of weasel excrement, Ted Nugent who claims that “fat women will kill you.”

“..no drugs, no alcohol, no tobacco and no fat chicks. Stuff will kill you, Pete, I’m telling you, it’s deadly.” 

Nugent notably boasted to High Times magazine in 1977 that he dodged fighting in the Vietnam War by defecating and vomiting on himself and his clothes and and not washing, taking hard drugs and pretending to be mentally disturbed.

Jokes on him—he didn't need to pretend.

I understand that not all men who slam women for their looks are Nugentian pedophilic shitstains (heh, pun not intended but enjoyed nonetheless) but, hells bells, they put themselves in some desperately repulsive company.

It's Picture Day

 

I decided that we needed more color and more light so I’ve replaced our first floor drapes with beaded curtains. It's true, I'm going for a whole seraglio effect. Rocco and Coco are standing in for the pet Dama Dama. And yes, yez, they get OT pay (i.e., extra treats) for that.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The drive down the Pike from West to East would be tediously unbearable if not for the incredible cloud activity. Not so easy to capture when I'm the one driving.

This tune floats into my head. Happily.

Cloudy, my thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy
They have no borders, no boundaries

They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell
Down from Berkeley to Carmel
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill

Hey sunshine, I haven't seen you in a long time
Why don't you show your face and bend my mind?

These clouds stick to the sky
Like floating questions, why?

And then, of course, Kraftwerk's Autobahn pops in. 

Here are some lovely, blowzy sunflowers seen on yesterday's trike excursion.

and, once again, I've got this beaut playing on the internal turntable. YES!

Highly Illogical

WHY in full flaming, Rubine Red blazes am I so damn angry lately?

This past week or so, it takes nothing, or next to, for me to feel like going off on friends and fam. Even if there had been something to miff me off, the boiling hostility, just itching to snatch center stage, is way off scale.

Wut up?

Got me hangin.’ I asked Jen if she had any thoughts. She allowed that, once her chemo was over (remember? She had tit cancer—survived it too. YEA!) and she was beginning to feel like herself again, she found that she was pissed 24/7. Positively raging. Normally, folks who’re rockin’ the mad choler-osity are really hard for me to be around but I don’t remember this at all.

Why not? Well, boyhowdy, I’d just been through my own hod of stront. Jen and I were probably dancing the Temper Tarantella together.

I get why Jen woulda been in a fury. Hell’s bells, YOU go through 6 months of scary, painful, freaky fucking medical crap where you’re fighting for your life and see how you feel! AND I get why The Amazing Bob would be raging but he’s not—he’s all peaceful and chill. Relieved maybe?

So why is my dander in a vicious fluff? How come I’m working overtime so’s I don’t rip the heads off all my innocent friends and fam for the crime of…of…dunno. Waddya got?

I suppose my thought on this is that I’ve been doing my damnedest to take care of the love of my life, my besty and partner of nearly 30 years. I’ve been dispensing his morning and evening pills (and watching over him to be sure he takes them), taking him to all his doc appointments and tests (making sure a ‘terp is there so I don’t miss a thing), nagging him endlessly to eat, EAT (and frantically searching for grub that'd appeal when he found all his usual loves odious) and I’ve been watching him sleep every night—checking to be sure he’s still breathing. What would I have done if he quit with the inhale/exhale action? Move heaven and earth, dammit, to get him back on track. Of course. He’s my man and I will NOT have any of this respiratory fail shit. Unacceptable! I've been keyed up, wound tighter than Rocco in a house full of kiddles and stressin' these glam ta-tas off for a lot of months now. I guess the hair trigger anger might have something to do with finally being able to breathe out again. Dunno.

TAB took a walk up to the corner store (about a five block round trip) the other day. This was HUH-YUUUUUUGE and I’m thrilled to bits (duh)! It seems he really IS starting to feel better.

PHEW!

Now I want a vaca. Cuba. I wanna go to Cuba, sit under a brightly colored umbrella on a sun flooded beach where the ocean’s an unreal shade of turquoise. And I want hot and cold running cabana gents serving me an endless stream of ridiculously ornate, befruited libations.

And Buffy. Buffy (final season and earliest years) should be on the lounge’s TeeVee. Followed by Angel (just the last two seasons thanks). Okay, after that there’ll be a Firefly marathon.

On this vaca—hells, life should be like this every damn day—I won’t have to read lips. People who wish to speak with me will beam their thoughts into my brainpan. You know my mind to your mind but without all that Vulcan touchy feely business. Oh, I know! I want that communication dealie—the BrainPal—from Old Man’s War, the John Scalzi series.

John Perry figures how to use it in battle situations. It is a great communication device for the soldiers. It is like having a limitless library in your head. It translates alien languages. The special forces soldiers use it for their main mode of communication.

It’s the Library of Alexandria. the BPL, the NY Public Library meets Spock crossed with Kreskin. With a BrainPal everyone speaks directly to each other's minds—no speech needed!

Want! Okay, I want the upgraded body (without all the soldier/war biz) to go along with it.

See? This is WHY I read sci fi. What? You’ve not read Old Man’s War yet? Christ almighty! Do it. do it. do it!

Off Path Discoveries

After the Rockwell Museum, Michal, Jeff and I set out for a couple of galleries near where we were staying. The Saint Francis Gallery was our first stop. The door was open but the lights were out and no one home. Sunlight was streaming in through the stained glass windows of this former church though—enough to get a good gander of most of the artwork. We wandered about. I expected the owner to walk in at any moment but no.

Michael Rousseau—Absinthe Still Life

They've a tremendous and wildly varied collection. The current exhibit is entitled Magical Realism.

Michael Rousseau had a few creepy-cool Hitchcockian paintings on display, including this absinthe still life.

Linda Baker-Cimini

Linda Baker-Cimini—LOVED her drawings! Her odd creatures and people spoke to me in a kindred spirit-y kind of way. I just read her bio and, ya know, she sounds like someone I should know.

Mary Carol Rudin—I am a total sucker for paintings of the sky. The wild blue yonder in all its incarnations (grey and scary included) fascinate me endlessly. The bestest part of my carnival years was when we’d play in-the-middle-of-nowhere MidWest locales. There were no tall buildings, no obscenely homely strip malls, NADA for miles and miles and miles. Yup, all corn fields which meant that the heavens were center stage all the time. Loved that!

Mary Carol Rudin

Check out Casey Krawczyk's website. That first piece, Insoluble or That Delicate Place In Between (Oil on Linen | 40”x27”) was on display. Mega dramatic, gorgeously rendered, mesmerizing—Shakespearean in tone.

We then moved on to Ozzies Glass Gallery  also in South Lee. Sadly, he was also closed.

As it turns out, both galleries are only open at the weekend. This is the height of the tourist season in Berkshire-land but South Lee must be so far off the excursionist path that being open on a Tuesday just doesn’t make solid financial sense—unfortunately for me. OK, maybe this was fortunate as I SO would’ve bought one of Mister Ozner'’s gorgeous turtles (at least) and one of the slim spiral bound volumes of Linda Baker-Cimini’s drawings.

We curtailed our gallery hopping in favor of a stop in at this spectacularly dive-ish looking bar. Nota bene, the joint’s so minimal, such a hole in the wall, that it doesn’t even have a name or a signage. How did we know about it? Michal, I believe, has honky tonk radar. Not a bad place though I doubt very much that I could get a clever, chi chi cocktail or a plate of Truffled Gorgonzola Fries or a chickpea burger.

Ah well, can’t have everything all the time, now can I? *sigh*

Rockwell, Chast and DAISIES

 GodDAMN I love daisies and they were simply everywhere yesterday!

It's a funny thing being back in the Berkshires. Specifically West Stockbridge. As we, Jenny, Jeff, Michal and I motored to the Norman Rockwell Museum yesterday morning, I got a wickedly strong case of déjà vu. Yup, My mind was thrown back to the days when Mary Ann was viciously illin' and I was driving out to see her every couple of weeks.

She would’ve loved this museum. I wish we’d been able to go there together.

This odd sculpture graces the lawn of the museum. Odd only because, well, Rockwell wasn’t exactly an abstract-y, fantasy (a la hobbit and gnomes with a smackeral of Aztec-y goodness tossed in), kind of an artist. Nope. Still, this was a perfect welcome piece. The joint is, yes, about Rockwell but there’s more.

The visiting exhibit, Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs, was brilliant! Yes, her tone and style are very different from Rockwell’s *duh* but there’s a pretty wide common thread too. They both paint(ed) about the world/life around them and Rockwell could be pretty damn witty at times too.

Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.
~Norman Rockwell

I’ve seen “The Problem We All Live With,” his 1963 painting of Ruby Bridges'  history-changing walk integrating the William Frantz Public School in New Orleans on November 14, 1960 reproduced in countless magazines and newspapers but to see it live, up close and in person was something else. It took my breath away.

In one of the galleries, I was thrilled to find his hilarious painting “The Gossips.” Better still, for each of the paintings in this room, Rockwell’s source material (he worked from photographs. I work from photos. Cool!) and preliminary sketches were shown side by side with the finished piece. Too awesome to see the evolution of a painting I love!

The Roz Chast exhibit was fabulous but (there’s always a but), to fully appreciate about half of the hundreds of cartoons and illustrations on show, I had to read. There was a lot to read. I've not taken the Evelyn Woodhead Speedreading Course, don'cha know. Chast's alien abduction series (one of three or four full series presented) was utterly brill and I just had to read every word but other viewers kept crowding me out. “Were they pushing you aside?”, you ask. No but they invaded my rather extensive personal space so I’d no choice but to back off and return later.

So then, I was wild about seeing her very witty, fun work but frustrated with all the interruptions. Naturally, I had to buy her book at the gift shop. Possibly that was her nefarious plan all along?

source, sketch, painting—The Gossips

GREAT Jones!

Home

Away

 

Yesterday morning started in sublime but steamingly hot Valhalla and ended in the somewhat less blisteringly hot Berkshires. Yes, I've scored another invite to the Annual Jones Family Vaca—yea me!

Last year we were in West Virginia which was gorgeous and utterly fab if for no other reason than, hello, Fiestaware Factory Outlet! Also too, the trip to the local grocery emporium was  an adventure all on its own—like a visit to a strange and mega foreign planet. Awesome!

This year we're in Western Massachusetts and how tremendous is that? I was able to drive versus fly AND I'm simply mad about this part of my world. Mountains and calm sweet lakes *sigh* If I was monster rich, I'd have a second residence right here.

Unfortunately I'm only here for a couple of days but they'll be art filled and grand. Today, amongst other plans and plots, we'll be hitting the Norman Rockwell Museum. I've lived in Boston for 35 years and haven't been there yet. Yes, I find that pretty amazing too.

Naturally this tune's playing, happily, on my internal turntable this morning.

I just can't...

I was watching the local morning news with The Amazing Bob this morning. This is never a good thing. Warum? The morning “news” is so patently watered down (c’mon, I can stand a few tidings of woe at 6 AM. Honest!), the colors so bright and cheery and the on air talent so tenderfootedly green, so fresh outta school, the ink’s still wet on their broadcast journo sheepskin.

Here’s what I wanna know, do the folks hiring these baby news readers think that het women don’t watch their little shows? The female presenters are generally all white, blond and wearing enough makeup to qualify as Kabuki. I get that the morning news is all about easing us poor slobs into the day but, fer fuck’s sake mon ami, what’s to keep me watching? The shark attack reports from South Africa surely won’t do it.

An aside, WHY is this even on the local Boston news? First off, South Africa isn’t anywhere near us (I mention this in case the producers are geographically challenged). Secondly, no one died in horrific, bloody, shades-of-Jaws agony. Maybe those handsome swimmy fellas were just surfer-boy curious? Possibly they were defending their home against invaders? Hey, they could have just been the local aquatic Welcome Wagon!

Eye candy dearth

But back to the female news readers—invariably they’re kitted out in partyware while the men are in suits and ties. Plunging necklines (on the babes) with push up bra-ed cleavage is standard.

Dear News Outlet Hiring Team,

How’s about sexing it up a bit for us Vagina Bostonians too? Ya know, as long as you’re assuming that all your male viewers want is eye candy why not do us that solid too? You could have a Jack Sparrow-ish dude giving the biz report. Or a Denzel clone advising on the day’s weather. How about having a soulfull, longhaired Hugh Jackman giving us the crime report.

C’mon, work with us here. After all, we Lady Bit Rockers outnumber the Penis Bostonians. We are more than half your market. Pay attention!

Yurs Truly,
Het Boston Babes

So, since the chicklet in the little black cocktail dress was too annoying, I decided to get my weather news online. As uzh, their The-Sky-Is-FALLING headline annoyed the ever livin’ crap outta me.

The lede, the click bait? NWS Weather Forecaster: This is Super Historic

When I clicked on the bait, the full headline was:

"Super Historic" July Rainfall in California Thanks to Former Hurricane Dolores; More Rain Ahead Early This Week

OK so for once it’s not dire, hysterical warnings of imminent terror inspiring weather BUT I wouldn’t know that from the scarehead, now would I?

Copywriting FAIL!

Apart from weather.com’s daily hysterics, it truly and completely drives me batshit when “super” is used as an adverb. Why? It’s lazy and makes the speaker sound, well, not terribly bright.

Cole Nesmith, in his fabola post We Have a Super Problem, hits on this more precisely than I:

The word has become a ubiquitous adverb (adverbs modify other words – adjectives in this case).

I’m super cold.
I’m super hungry.
I’m super sick.

I’m not sure what “super sick” means. It seems it would be akin to “I’ve run out of options, and the doctors say I have two days left.” But I’ve only heard the term used to mean, “I have a cold.”

And “super hungry.” Does that mean, “I’ve been alone in the desert for a week, and I need to eat?” No. It usually indicates something like, “I haven’t eaten since noon, and now it’s 7 PM.”

The “super” adverb is in common use to the point that I heard it used last week in an NPR segment.

NPR?! I cringe with every “super.”

Get outta the boat and go read his tremendous (super?) post—his adverb alternatives are brill.

Now that I’m full up on annoyance for the morning, it’s time to get to work.

Alrighty then!

Moar ArtBeat

More tremendous ArtBeat artists.

Stone Street Tie-Dye and Graphics—brilliant T’s! I was first drawn in by their shark shirts but then, then I saw the tanks that were just all over color. Had to have one. As you may recall, I’m a firm believer in color. The more the merrier. There is no occasion, already so happy, that tie dye brilliance can’t improve on it. The opposite holds solidly true as well—no circumstance so dire that tie dye's jubilating hues will fail to instill a bit 'o' peace.

Guilday Glass—I’ve a couple of their small glass bead sun catchers. I’d love to have an entire window done with one of these designs. They also make earrings. Mega reasonably priced too! Yes, I’ve more than a few pair.

Jen bought a stunning blown glass tumbler from David Benyosef. I couldn't find a website for him but he's got a public Facebook page where more of his work can be see.

There were a ton of other brill artists there. I couldn’t get near a lot of tables due to the crowds. Yes, as I mentioned earlier—rainy day but still a ton of folks out to enjoy the fest.

 Chris Taylor of Taylor Custom was there. Just as well I couldn’t get near his table. I, undoubtedly, would have bought too damn much of his fabulous stuff, just as I did at the River fest. I mean, honestly now, who doesn't need an anatomically correct human heart locket or a trilobite nodule keychain OR a set of chameleon drawer pulls?

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”
~Émile Zola

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
~Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island