#fotsnmoney Schrödinger’s Cat Bill: maybe your money has value, maybe not – you don’t know til you open your wallet. http://t.co/4saydYPS
@S_Taradash
S. Taradash
“That’s an aardvark? Is that a real animal?”#Overheardatthezoo #zsl #dumbasses
@S_Taradash
S. Taradash
You know what I haven’t done in a while?
In general, posted anything. More specifically, posted envelope sketches.
Oh, I’ve still been doing them. Or at least, I’ve still been saving the envelopes to do them on. But I’m a little behind schedule. So here are the three most recent that I’ve scanned.
Incidentally, I don’t really know much about Simon Cowell. When one of my co-workers failed to identify Nicolas Parsons and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I figured I’d try someone more current. However, never having seen an episode of whatever modern Gong Show he’s on, I had to guess about what he’d say.
Y’know, now that I think of it, the Gong Show might have set a precedent for allowing people with questionable talent on the air, but it looked like the “celebrities” involved were generally having a good time, and seemed to be laughing with the contestants more often than at them. Maybe I’m inclined to think fondly of the Gong Show because it seems to have a combination of joyous anarchy, the odd good-ol’-fashioned-performance, and a willingness to go with it and have a laugh when things went a little blue.
Chuck Barris, I salute you.
Judges on the X-Factor, [Nation]‘s got Talent, and whatever other self-aggrandizing, mean-spirited audition shows are on these days? You get the gong and the gas face.
Thoughts about literacy + Sketchdump 03
For a very long time I had believed (I have believed?) that there was some intrinsic value to language used well. An idea expressed clearly and well seemed more believable or persuasive or true or than one half-formed or blurted out incoherently. But this assumption of mine is only an assumption. It hasn’t been subject to cross-examination or logical analysis. I realize now that I’ve not tested it. Read more
Sketchdump 02
Didn’t think I’d manage to get another set of envelope sketches done. The last six weeks have been busier than I’d expected. Between trying to offer an itty-bitty bit of assistance to a noble publishing effort, starting a new gig in an office on the south side of the river, and all that business of trying to live like a modern human, I haven’t been so good about posting. So here, have some more envelope sketches.
Such as they are.
I think the third one is my favorite, but I do seem to draw that 3/4 view kind of a lot. I wonder if it’s because most of the photos I pick have that pose, or just that most photos taken have that pose.
Lost arts
Last week someone found a drawing I’d made back in school, some 15+ years ago, and posted it on Facebook. If you’ll excuse a little retrospective modesty, it wasn’t a great drawing, more of a cartoon, really. Not much in the way of depth or shading, limited use of colors, and showing only a rudimentary grasp of anatomy. It was meant to be a small comment on the impending end of our time in high school, and a small nod to a couple of good friends. But in the few comments that followed, it seems that other people thought I used to draw and doodle and make little cartoons all the time.
So what happened? Why don’t I draw anymore? Read more
On the to-do list…
Most people have got things to do, right? Well, I’m people too, and also have one of those lists. During the next couple of weeks I’m going to be working on:
- setting up a new web page for OFF_press
- a new writing/performance project
- getting settled into a new place of residence
- and finally getting my portfolio halfway updated
And just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I’m not actually talking to you. This is an official statement of intent, see?
So now that I’ve alluded to some of what I’m working on, what’s on your list? Let me know how you get along with it. I hear there something to be said for mutual encouragement, so let’s get some stuff done, yeah?
A fair amount to mull over.
Last week I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Poland in the company of some interesting writers and creative types, and the whole experience was thought provoking in a way that I hadn’t expected.
Because it was primarily a working trip, I wasn’t expecting to do much in the way of sightseeing or tourist-type stuff. And since I’d been trying to attend to other matters that seemed fairly pressing beforehand, I didn’t really have, or take, any time to research where we were going; no learning train routes, no memorizing phrasebook questions, not even taking the time to look closely at a map. I was going to try and treat Poland like a blank slate.
As it turns out, I thought I knew a few things that turned out to be almost completely unhelpful in terms of providing a scale or context for understanding where I went. What did history class teach leave in my head? A much desired, ice-free port on the Baltic, serious population losses during WWII, something or other about cowboys and unions in 1989, and not much else of use. So being confronted with both present realities of life and explanations from different people about what they thought had brought the present was fairly overwhelming.
For a week I had the opportunity to meet some fascinating individuals, eat some of the heartiest meals eastern Europe has to offer, and to be looked after with good humor and hospitality by people with starling explanations for some of the ways their country came to be the way it is. But it will take some time to digest. Particularly the food from some of the milk bars.
