Hungry Ghost Moon

Xavier Rudd - The Letter

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:37:36 -0600

Xavier Rudd - The Letter

The SET Game

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:52:52 -0500

The SET Game:

My greatest defense against Alzheimer’s. There’s an iPhone/iPod app now!

JS&MN - Stephen Black, Jonathan Strange, and Arabella...

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:39:24 -0500

JS&MN - Stephen Black, Jonathan Strange, and Arabella Strange

Rough for another illustration. Maria Absalom, from pages...

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:52:31 -0500

Rough for another illustration. Maria Absalom, from pages 272-273 of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I tried to draw some S&N stuff for Emma last week and failed utterly, horribly, miserably. Which is a shame because I know when I’ve read the book, I’ve had some really good stuff in my head. So I started re-reading the novel, and marked passages that I’d like to do something with, eventually. I think this chapter, The Shadow House, invokes some of the most lush and vivid imagery.

Death Note copycat crimes and imitations

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:11:00 -0500

Death Note copycat crimes and imitations:

Clearly, you cannot trust us white people with anything.

I’ve finally realized why I didn’t like Death Note. Or rather, I always knew (sort of) why I didn’t like Death Note, I just never quite knew how to articulate it. So. In Death Note, the two main characters (Light and L; I never got far enough along to where that wasn’t the case), were constantly plotting against each other, and not only that, many of their plots involved predicting what their counterpart was going to do at least three steps in advance. And the logic they used to do this, man, the logic was almost always bizarre, nonsensical, or stupid. Sometimes all three at once. Yet somehow, they were always right! In spite reaching these conclusions via the strange mental alchemy favored by schizophrenics, their predictions were always correct. Of course, if one of them predicted the other’s next move, chances were that the other had already predicted that the first one would predict it, and so on and so forth ad nauseam. And then, even more frustratingly, the manga would present all this absurd plotting and side-stepping as evidence of both characters’ genius. Because this was the pillar upon which both of these characters were supported: patently superior intellect. No one was as smart as Light or L. NO ONE! Not even their parents. Especially not their parents! (Well, Light’s parents… did L have parents?)

I have a theory. There is a period of time in the life of every adolescent (similar to the age of Shounen Jump’s target audience), averaging seven years or so and beginning at age 10, where children are convinced that their parents are unconscionable idiots. Not just their parents, in fact, but almost everyone else on the planet. Not only do the know everything, but they are alone in their brilliance! If you subscribe to the theory of mind, and think of human development on a scale from “fundamentally selfish amoeba” to “empathetic human being”, this would be somewhere in the middle. You’ve begun to comprehend, in a practical way, that the other people living on this planet are sentient beings. Each of them do, in fact, have their own individual consciousness. But you still haven’t cleared the hurdle of thinking that, if this is so, then all those other individuals must be, like, totally retarded. This is the attitude on which Death Note is constructed.

I understand that this is a stage most people go through. So while it is not exactly shameful, I’m not sure I like when it’s appealed to, either.

See week twenty-one, or so, of the Lindh kitchen project. Roughly five weeks behind schedule. ...

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:47:00 -0500

See week twenty-one, or so, of the Lindh kitchen project. Roughly five weeks behind schedule. Photo taken before I threw myself through that window in an attempt to find a heaven in which all kitchens are mercifully complete and stocked with the necessary appliances.

Being kitchen-less for roughly five months now, we have started making excessive use of the slow cooker (or Crock-Pot; as you like). Our more successful experiments have included potato-corn chowder, TVP chili, and spaghetti sauce (which I make paste-thick and garlic-y enough to be used as a treatment for intestinal parasites). The less successful efforts, generally spearheaded by my mother (I’m just saying), have involved throwing random vegetables in water to create “soup base” à la Julia Child. Apparently, another middle-aged white woman told her about Julie & Julia. I suspect Julia Child’s own method may have been more sophisticated, but my mother didn’t let stifling traditions hinder her crusade to use as much of the produce from our CSA as possible before it went bad. So now we have about thirteen Tupperwares-worth of swampy-looking broth in the downstairs freezer that she will have to find a use for.

My mother is not a cook. Long before I was born, my father began cooking for the household, presumably to avoid eating whatever it was my mom had been making at the time. When deprived of his culinary services, my mother will make one of three things:

Cubed-steak sandwiches
Crêpes (fancypants for “pancakes”)
Tuna salad

My father used to go away on business a lot more when I was younger, and I can tell you, by the time I was fifteen I had developed a vocal and aggressive aversion to cubed-steak.

I suppose it’s only fair to note that my mother is a competent baker. Not as competent as me, though! Once our new kitchen is done, around my 30^th birthday or so (and once I hunt down a good vegan egg-substitute), I plan to go mad with my own competency and cook at least five different varieties of seasonally appropriate cookies. Also, I have never made a pumpkin pie starting with a really-real, un-canned pumpkin. Something to think about.

P.S. BAWWWWWWWWWW.

It is the end of September, and my nose has started to run. It will continue to run, I expect,...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:30:57 -0500

It is the end of September, and my nose has started to run. It will continue to run, I expect, until late April of next year.

Happy fall!

Idina Menzel & Leo Norbert Butz (Wicked) - As Long As...

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:22:52 -0500

Idina Menzel & Leo Norbert Butz (Wicked) - As Long As You’re Mine

For my mother’s b-day. Piper is not so hard to draw,...

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:37:00 -0500

For my mother’s b-day. Piper is not so hard to draw, because Scottish Terriers have a really clear silhouette. Dumpling, however, is a weird little furball and I always have trouble making any of my doodles look like her. This is… so-so.

(Piper and Dumpling are our family’s dogs, as you can probably tell.)

"You gonna eat that? You gonna eat that? You gonna eat that? I’ll eat that."

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:41:00 -0500

“

You gonna eat that?
You gonna eat that?
You gonna eat that?

I’ll eat that.

”

- A Poem by Karen Shephard’s Dog, Birch

(Another poem I like!)

Those Canadians are a wily bunch. Apparently, the have been...

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:22:00 -0500

Those Canadians are a wily bunch. Apparently, the have been keeping Kids in the Hall from me for 15-20 years! I can’t believe it!

I love Dave Foley.

"I started a new project…I’m working with a man who had a psychological break. Or maybe..."

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:57:32 -0500

“I started a new project…I’m working with a man who had a psychological break. Or maybe a psychotic break. Also, we got a new kitten.”

- Ben the yoga instructor’s answer to a student who asked him what was new.

Jim Brickman - Angel Eyes

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:26:40 -0500

Jim Brickman - Angel Eyes

From the ages of about 6 to 11, I went to a latchkey program (big-kid for “daycare”)...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:27:00 -0500

From the ages of about 6 to 11, I went to a latchkey program (big-kid for “daycare”) before and after school. There was a teacher there named Dorothy who I recall looking, for lack of a better image, like Tyler Perry as his “Medea” character.

I was a weird kid whose social skills fluctuated between loud and desperate to nonexistent, and I often felt more comfortable trying to socialize with adults than with kids my own age. Dorothy and I had a relationship that was as frequently adversarial as it was affectionate. She razzed me more than any of the other kids, but she also let me get away with a lot more. I was also a huge brat, and it sort of horrifies me to remember how disrespectful I was to her sometimes. I used to call her “Dork-othy” when I was mad at her.

We played “fiddlesticks” (her name for Pick-up Sticks) almost every morning, and since I wasn’t allowed to watch anything R-rated, I used to make her recall the Child’s Play movies for me as she’d seen them on cable. She even babysat me on her own a few times. We drove to her house after stopping at the beauty parlor where she got her hair set every week. I was allowed me to sit on the plastic-covered couch in her living room (which was all-white, extra-fancy, shut-off-except-for-guests). Then we made cookies, and I got to play with her two smashed-nose dogs and watch cable TV. She would talk about her grandkids, and sometimes I was jealous of them because I’d knew she probably loved them more than she loved me, even though I loved her as much as I loved my own grandmother.

When I was like 13, she moved to Las Vegas, and I never managed to get ahold of her new phone number or address. I had a dream about her a couple days ago, and I woke up crying because I realized that she might be dead, and I wouldn’t know.

(Uh oh… this post was way too serious! I’m feeling vulnerable. Quick, quick, make a joke..!) Yeah, so, Tyler Perry… how many times will he make the same movie, eh?! Probably as many times as I keep enjoying them anyway!

(Phew.)

In Japanese-language hentai, every female character’s “sexy gasping” noises sound...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:59:40 -0500

In Japanese-language hentai, every female character’s “sexy gasping” noises sound like squeaky dolphin language.

I hate when an anime uses two girls competing over a guy’s affections as a serious (as opposed...

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:59:27 -0500

I hate when an anime uses two girls competing over a guy’s affections as a serious (as opposed to hilariously idiotic*) plot element. When some chick says to another, “I wont loose to you!”, and the show treats it like a sign of strength. It feels so degrading.

* Of note because when two guys do the same thing, a show usually portrays them as humorous assholes (congruent to what they would be in real life, if they were to engage in such behavior).

Vienna Teng - Stray Italian Greyhound

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:09:06 -0500

Vienna Teng - Stray Italian Greyhound

Here’s that picture. Uh… my mom liked it, I think.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:51:31 -0500

Here’s that picture. Uh… my mom liked it, I think.

Test for a planned illustration. I don’t know if...

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:48:29 -0500

Test for a planned illustration. I don’t know if I’m a good enough artist to do this the way I want it.

My mother’s voice mail intro is cute. The automated voice says, “Hello. You have...

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:55:37 -0500

My mother’s voice mail intro is cute. The automated voice says, “Hello. You have reached the voice mail box of…” and then my mom’s recording pipes up: “THIS IS RUTH.” Like she didn’t really know how it was going to work when she recorded it. (She didn’t.)

Have you ever written a post and then realized it wasn’t interesting to anyone but you?

…