This & That

Who was Wink Martindale and why would anyone choose Wink as their first name? 

Okay, I just googled him. He was a game show host. Game show hosts are what you get when you take a slimy, slick, hyped up door-to-door window replacement salesman and put him on a soundstage under hot spotlights. He's told he has to get Joe and Jane Nobody from Buck Snort, Arkansas (yes, that town actually exists) hysterically excited about winning a new Kenmore washing machine. All Mr. and Mrs. Nobody have to do is successfully name three things in Egypt, succinctly explain quantum theory AND identify three U.S. presidents who were treated for STIs.

So, Winston "Wink" Martindale? A person whose only talent was being oily. According to his Wikipedia page he was a born again christian (AKA a complete hypocrite) and a Republican (AKA the Guardians of Pedophiles Party).

He had a catchy name though, eh?
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With the latest Civil War iteration spreading across the country, it makes ridiculous amounts of sense to be prepared, right? ICEholes have made it clear they have NO problem tossing tear gas canisters, shooting Oleoresin Capsicum/pepper spray, tossing hexachloroethane smoke and flash-bang grenades at resisters. So, if you’re going to be out in the streets, get a gas mask.

They’re not all big and ungainly. The 3M Half Face Respirator uses disposable P100 filters so you can keep reusing the “shell.” 

Remember to pair the half face respirators with secure sealing goggles though. Protect your eyes!

Pew Pew Tactical has a post up – 8 Best Gas Masks, Face Masks, Respirators, & Filters. Check it out.

An additional reason to have gas masks and welding gloves for protests? 

I’ve read that Minnesotans are throwing tear gas canisters back at the ICEhole brigades. (those canisters are HOT – you need welding gloves!) A Threader remarked that this is why we had to play dodgeball in gym class. It was prep.

I’ve also heard the ICEholes are being pelted with dildos. Seems like a waste of a good sex toy. //shrugs//

I may have mentioned this before BUT the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, written by the Office of Strategic Services (direct predecessor of the CIA) in 1944, should be updated and widely distributed. Who better to rewrite it than the good folks at ground zero in Minnesota?

More on being prepared – make a kit, keep it near your front door. Put in a copy of your ID, passport, and birth certificate. Include an emergency contact and the contact information for an attorney (if you don’t have one, check out your state’s ACLU’s legal assistance page). Make a code word that can quickly be texted to friends/family to tell them to come get Fluffy, Spike, Godzilla, and other pets or children should things look dire.
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A sculptor I’ve just come across – Max Leiva.

…a contemporary Guatemalan artist known for his expressive figurative sculptures. His style is informed by his travels around the world, from Switzerland to Bangkok, where he studied for two years. His artistic path materializes in the figurative or the abstract, claiming not only his roots from the Mayan culture of Central America, but also his experiences traveling the world. (source) 

He works in bronze, resin, iron, clay, and aluminum. Damn, I’m blown away.
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Words for today:

Contumacious
     adjective 
: stubbornly disobedient : rebellious

Obstreperous 
     adjective 
1 : marked by unruly or aggressive noisiness : clamorous 
2 : stubbornly resistant to control : unruly

The resisters contumacious actions and obstreperous rallies raised morale immeasurably.

Art and Stuff

Meet 52 year old bricklayer-turned-architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre. He is the creator of the wild Neo-Andean style.

Though many westerners draw comparisons to Las Vegas, Mamani clarifies that the shapes, colors, and patterns he uses are drawn from Bolivia’s pre-Columbian history. In particular, the aguayo, a bright woven cloth of the Aymara, an indigenous group that Mamani is a part of, inspires the architect’s designs….“My designs are a modern expression of our culture,” he adds. “Since Evo Morales [the country’s first indigenous president] became president, things have changed a lot. We feel proud of being Aymaran.” (source)

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A lovely 600 kilogram (1,322.77 pounds) walrus is summering in Oslo. She’s especially partial to climbing into boats for naps in the sun. Dubbed Freya, for the Norse goddess of love, fertility, sex, lust, beauty, sorcery, gold, war, and death, our girl has also been spotted around Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the Shetland Islands.

You’ve probably already seen the vid of sea lions on the beach in La Jolla Cove, California.

Charlianne Yeyna, who captured the scene, said “Like, they are still wild animals and you need to give them their space. I think that this shows that they are not to be messed with.” (source)

By the by, male sea lions can weigh up to 454 kilograms (1,000 pounds). I really wouldn’t want to get one pissed off at me.
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Thanks to the plague and Nf2, I’m gonna miss this brill exhibit—The Birth of Punk.

Punk was quite a broad category in the 1970s, and the exhibit does an impressive job of showcasing album covers, posters, flyers, photographs and videos from a wide range of bands including The Dead Boys, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Suicide, The Dictators, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. (source)

In my hearing days I listened to a shit-ton more than just punk but that was a big piece of the musical pie (my tastes included just about everything EXCEPT country). The Birth of Punk is only up through the end of this week so if you’re down in NYC, stop by and take a few snaps for me. Grazie.

One of these days I won’t be such a shut-in. I’ll travel again, see more of my friends, maybe even paint. Meanwhile, Ten and I can do a drive-by of the mural Breathe Life 2 that’s up now outside Madison Park High School in nearby Roxbury.

More Words About Buildings and Art

Bauhaus

Is there a more boring architectural style than Georgian?

Georgian

No, I don’t believe there is. At left is Massachusetts Hall on the Harvard campus. So dull, if I gazed upon its vapid countenance for longer than a few minutes, I’d assuredly fall asleep.

Me? I favor the Bauhaus school of architecture/design. That and modernist, postmodernist, the American Queen Anne style and, of course, art nouveau (Hello, Señor Gaudí!). Gimme clean lines OR all the curlicue action you got.

American Queen Anne

Here in my little town, across and down the road from the birthplace and home of John and John Quincy Adams, there used to be a two or three story glass house. Set back from the street, surrounded by trees, it was all angles and curves. GORGEOUS! (sadly, no, I never got a pic of it) If I had the bucks, I’d live in a house just like that.

Why can’t I get a snap of it now? The owners moved or died. It was bought by some soulless fucks who tore it down. In its place they built half a dozen ugly McMansions (I know, I know—that’s redundant).

I live in a wee Cape Cod style box. It does the sheltering job just dandy BUT I imagine the place made of glass brick, clear glass and blue steel. I’d have a brightly tiled Gaudi-esque balcony off the bedroom where I could read and stare at the water for hours on end.There'd be Gaudi lizards crawling up the stairs and Pamela Irving dogs guarding the doors.

Yeah, that’d do the trick just fine. 

Frank Gehry—Case Danzanti

Philip Johnson—Da Monsta

Today

Dream numero uno: An old friend of mine had remarried. He, his new wife and their young daughter had moved into a San Francisco Victorian. It was beautiful but needed a lot of work. They were excited about all the creative rehabbing possibilities and I was enjoying listening to their ideas.

Next up: I, for some odd, inexplicable reason, met Ivanka Trump (I know EWWWWWW). Incredibly, she was in vapidly nice mode. Perhaps she thought I was some important foreign official who could grant her coffin and cremation urn trademarks? Nepotism Barbie, in this dream, had changed her name to Demahigan (I know—she’d have to change a fuckton more than her name to rid herself of the stench from her and her family’s despicable cruelty and wickedly greedheaded corruption). Demahigan, by the by, is the Abenaki word for tomahawk. I asked her WHY the fuck she’d changed her name to this. Because it sounds pretty, she says. And there, with this idiot spouting idiocies, the dream ended.

 What do these nocturnal vignettes mean? //shrugs// Dream one? I’ve been thinking of my friend and wishing him happy, imaginative fun. Dream two? I really need to not read HuffPost before bed.

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Yesterday was my big proton prep day at MGH. Not knowing what to expect, (will the mold they make for my radiation cover my face? If so claustrophobia PANIC), I took a calm-me-down pill 15 minutes before the appointment’s kick off. Good thing too.

Yes, the mask covers my face BUT because the targeted tumor(s) are on the thoracic portion of my spine (versus higher on the spine or in my bean) I got a reprieve. I warned the techs of my raging claustrophobia and they were able to make an opening for my eyes and nose. Phew!

Yes I was near tears until the mold was finished, placed and the proton  simulation commenced. Once it did though, I realized that I was comfortable (NOT comfy but not at all panicky) and free to let my mind wander.

• Gee, those marks (on this machine I’m being rolled through) look like Pac Man. I wonder what they really are.
• This mask makes it impossible for me to speak—I wonder if that’s the intent.
• Is it possible to get the mask in a nice, deep, shimmery amethyst—I think that’d go better with my hair and skin tone and shit.

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The other night I discovered that my friend and ex-studio mate, Holly Sears had left this good green world in late January of 2021. She was just a year younger than The Amazing Bob. Sadly, due to TAB’s health, my own struggles and hers, we’d fallen out of touch. Life got in the way of fun with art friends. Our last contact (on Shoutyface) was, probably, about five or six years ago—just before TAB took that last train for the coast.

Compound sadness/grief is what I’m feeling today.

Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before,
Advanced a stage or two upon that road
Which you must travel in the steps they trod.
~ Aristophanes

The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.
~ Irving Berlin 

Mystical Poop

Back in the dark ages when my family lived in an awful, cramped apartment in Bloomington, Indiana, my father learned how to read tarot cards. It was the late ‘60s—mysticism was big. The Beatle’s were buds with Timothy Leary; The Doors were keen on Aldous Huxley; David Bowie and Jimmy Page were into Aleister Crowley. Daddy would read them for his fellow Ph.D candidates and friends. It was a fun, mind sparking thing—not to be taken seriously.  

Even at the tender age of 12, I got that predicting the future, uncovering deep hidden truths, unlocking life’s enigmatic puzzles via cards, Ouija Boards, astrological dice and crystal balls was nonsensical, wishful crap. Fun? Intriguing? Sure, but foolishness nonetheless.

In my rabbit hole wanderings this morning, I found that tarot card reading isn’t necessarily and always a teevee psychic/fortune teller scam.

The aim of a tarot reading is to explore a question about the self. You pick cards to help you reflect on possible answers, interpreting the meaning of each in relation to what you asked. Keep in mind that tarot cards are tools for introspection, and for that reason it's best to keep questions open-ended. (source)

Sounds like it CAN be a useful way to get to know yourself more better—develop greater self-awareness and shit. Sort of like a card game version of psychotherapy.

I've always liked the cards—they’re thought inspiring and often beautiful.

At This is Colossal there’s a post up about an upcoming book from the German art book publisher, Taschen.

Compiling more than 500 cards, a new book sequences an incredibly diverse array of metaphysical decks from medieval to modern times. Tarot is arranged in order from the Major to the Minor Arcana and examines the meaning behind the varied illustrations, considering who created them and when. (source)

The Marigold Deck—Strength

I do believe I’ll need to invest in this.

The Major Arcana Tarot cards reveal messages about the big picture of your life and its long-term direction.
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The Wands cards are about action, initiative, and invention. They help to guide how you move through your life, advising when to move and when to hold back.
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The Cups cards represent your emotions, intuition, and relationships. They can guide you in love and help you understand and process your highest and lowest feelings.
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The Swords cards are all about challenges. They can tell you when conflict and heartache are looming and help you harness the strength of your own mind.
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The Pentacles cards are associated with your work, finances, and domestic life. They can answer questions about your personal goals and your money, family, and health.
(source)

My Major Arcana Cards? The Emperor and Death. How dismally unromantic.

Death and The Emperor have in common the qualities of polar absolutes: both are crystal clear in the definition of their function, territory and authority; neither can be moderated or softened in the performance of their duties; each balances the other perfectly — one deconstructs and wipes away, the other organizes and establishes. They are both utterly dependable.

The Emperor makes Death lawful, and gives him pride of place in the scheme of things. Death makes everything mutable, so that the law itself is constantly changing, adaptive and alive.
(source)

Here’s another idea—while I’m still less mobile than I’d like, maybe I can begin sketching out, doodling up my own deck of tarot cards. Who knows, once I’m consistently back on my feet, this could become my next series of painting.