The other up a tree

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In a tree

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Falls of the Ohio WIP

The background is mostly done.  I've been concentrating on the foreground lately.  I'm working on bristol paper, which isn't great for wet media, so some of the paper on the right where I brushed in the river has become a little messed up.  Not a big deal, though.
 

 

Dinosaur

You know, I sort of liked my Halloween costume.  I thought it was kinda cool.

 

This is about 9,000,000,001 times cooler:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFf3ZWNF6EY&feature=player_embedded
 

 

It makes me want to weep with joy, it is so beautiful.

Painting and other time-sinks

 

Attached is a photo of some panels I've gessoed in preparation for painting.  The raised one, which is a birch painting panel I just bought, is for the portrait commission that I must start.  The other two are particle boards that I wanted to have ready because I really want to get some other painting done.  The scenery has been so pretty.  I also had the idea that I might simultaneously work on another portrait on my own for additional experimentation and practice—it might help smooth my way, since I don't want to screw up the commission, and I haven't done a portrait in a looooong time.

 

I don't know why, but yesterday I started thinking about fishing.  I used to go pretty frequently, but I haven't been in a long time.  Now it's been five or six or seven years.  There is no way that I'd be able to go very often, but I wonder if I should try to go a few times this year?  Should I get a fishing license?

 

I have fond memories of combined fishing/painting trips with friends.  The combination never really worked out too well:  As long as there was a line in the water, it was hard to concentrate on painting.  I did, however, manage to get some painting done, including some good ones.

 

It was fun fishing for catfish that way.  I'd have a line out on the bottom with a nightcrawler, and a bell attached to the pole.  Then I'd set up my easel close by.  I could paint, and as soon as I heard the bell ring (ding-ding-ding), I'd drop my brush and run over to the pole and crouch next to it, ready to pick it up.

 

Usually, nothing would happen, so after a few minutes I'd walk back to my easel.  I'd pick up my brush, and then: ding-ding-ding…

 

A good way to spend an afternoon.

 

Most of my friends and family don't like fishing, but there are a few who do.  There's one in particular I used to fish with a lot; now I want to call him to see if he's been lately.

 

My favorite thing about fishing, by far, is the excited, tense feeling that comes right before a fish takes the hook.  I love how it feels, for instance, to be fishing on the bottom for catfish, and to see the pole jerk or bend slightly, telegraphing some unknown fish's interest.  Or watching a bobber, after a long period of stillness, suddenly begin to bounce or move.

 I find it hard to justify the time for fishing now, though, because I should be working on art.  I already have other hobbies: metal detecting, coin collecting, gardening.  I don't have enough time for those.  But I guess fishing doesn't need to be a hobby, it can just be an occasional excursion.  Hmmm.

 

Photos a 5-yr-old would take if she had the camera in the back seat on a long car trip

 

 

Falls of the Ohio drawing update

A couple of new photos.  It's getting there.  I'm getting a little (pleasantly) busy: I also have a small double portrait oil painting commission, a new house drawing I have to start soon, and a small drawing commission from Kim.
 

 

Tafel throws a party

 From the Wave 3 web site.  I thought the renovation celebration/ house fire juxtaposition was interesting.

 

IMG00142-20110409-1215.jpg

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Falls of the Ohio WIP

I've been making a little more progress on the walnut ink drawing. Above is a detail; below is the full thing. It's coming along all right. I really like now the ink looks in the close-up; I like the varying values of the pen strokes and varying line thicknesses. That's my favorite part of working with this kind of ink.

I (heart) astronomy photos

That's the center bulge of our Milky Way galaxy looming on the horizon.
 

 http://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/large/potw1114a.jpg

Sunny windy Sunday

I got my first sunburn of the year yesterday.  It's not bad. They rarely are for me, but I can feel this one a little on the back and sides of my neck.

 

The girls and I worked in the garden for a while.  We planted some snap peas, chives, and asparagus, but most of the time I was out there I was just trying to prepare the soil.  Since I've been quite lax in the past about using mulch, grass and weed roots pervade my designated garden spots, and I try to get rid of them as I go.

 

I've never tried to grow asparagus before, and I'm looking forward to it:  Not only do I like eating it, but I think the plants are attractively large and interesting.  I hope they do all right.

 

I still need to plant some garlic bulbs and spinach, and I need to get the tomatoes and broccoli going in the starter trays I just bought.

 

After we worked in the garden, we all went to Robsion Park to ride bikes and fly kites (photos in posts below).  It was a good kite flying day.  Usually when I think it's a good kite flying day I still can't get a kite to stay up very well at all, but we had more success yesterday than usual, despite the fact that Len spent a huge amount of time trying to get strings untangled.  The girls rode their bikes quite a bit, and I wasn't sure they were going to stop before I dropped.

 

 

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Flying kites at the park with Grandpa Len!
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After John Carter's Honey

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Falls of the Ohio WIP

Not a great photo; done with my Blackberry, but you can get the idea.
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Falls of the Ohio work-in-progress

I've been working on a new drawing; it's a 10 x 15 inch view of the Falls of the Ohio from the Falls of the Ohio State Park observation deck.  I've sketched it in with graphite, and yesterday I started using ink.

 

It took me a while to decide whether to use my black ink Pigma Micron pens, or to use my walnut ink with dip pens and brushes.  Finally I decided on the walnut ink.  It's more cumbersome, and the risk of a drawing-ruining accident is higher, but I think I'll be happier with the look.

 

Photos to follow.

 

Another angle

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Cemetery on Murphy Lane

I looked around this old cemetery on Murphy Lane on Saturday. It needs a little upkeep.
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Another exchange, this time stemming from a conversation about arnica massage oil:

 

Me: "I like the way it smells. What is arnica, anyway?"

Kim: "I think it's a kind of shrub."

Me: "Huh. A shrub. It would also make a good name for a baby girl."

Jill, yelling from the next room: "Shrub??"

 

 

I'm not a scrapbooker.  I wonder what the ratio of male scrapbookers to female scrapbookers is? Probably about 1/90?  Anyway, I just heard someone talking about scrapbooking, and it made me think about it.  I like the idea of scrapbooking, but I really dislike how most scrapbook hobbyists are doing their scrapbooks. (Disclaimer: since I'm not into scrapbooking, I only see a very small selection, so what I see might not be very representative.)  The reason I dislike it is because I want it to be more journalistic and information-loaded, but it seems like most of the examples I see are 90% style and 10% substance.

 

Maybe it's just a matter of expectation.  I associate the idea of scrapbooking with keepsakes and memories.  But if people did what they are doing and called it something different, like "Skrapping," I'd never give it a thought.  I'd just think of it as an art form somewhere between photography and collage.

 

This reminds me of my attitudes about the naming of artwork.  I think many, or perhaps most, artists are lousy at titling their art (and I recognize that this means that most other artists probably would think that I'm lousy at titling mine).  I want art, even abstract art, to be some form of record of actual experiences; furthermore, I want the artwork itself, not the title, to be the vehicle for any fanciful associations.

 

This means I don't like it when someone paints a landscape and titles it something like "Evening Symphony."  If a viewer is going to regard the painting to be a symphony, I think the artist should leave it to him or her to make that connection. "Evening" is a better title, and I'd even prefer "Evening: This Reminds Me of a Symphony."

 

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose paintings I really like, used musical terms in titling his paintings, but it doesn't bother me because they were used in a subtler, more consistent way.  His titles work as simple catalog entries.

 

 

Lessons learned (fixed link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBgThvB_IDQ

Oh, the humanity.

Crocus

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Small landscape

I did this at the same time I was working on the below thoroughbred drawing. This is a black walnut ink sketch done with a brush wash and crow quill nib. It's pretty small, about 4 x 6 inches. This is the view of the Ohio River from the Otter Creek Park boat ramp, a scene I've sketched and painted a number of times before.

Another horse and jockey drawing

Another version of a previousdly done scene; walnut ink, drawn with a sharpened forsythia twig and a crowquill pen over a brushed wash. I did this the day before yesterday. I might do a little touching up still.

KFC Yum! Center

I finally finished this drawing of KFC Yum! Center. It's 10 x 15 inches on hot press watercolor paper.

Another photo from last June

photo by Jill; cropped and edited by me.

A photo from last June

taken by Jill
 

 

March Madness is Here!!!

The madness is likely attributable to lead poisoning, or simple deprivation.

 

My brackets for this year...
 

 

Looking for interesting dollars

I'm always keeping an eye out for interesting money, but I rarely find it. This one is sooooooooo close to being a good one to give to Kevin. Darn it!
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Monday Morning's Tornados

I used information from two National Weather Service maps showing confirmed tornado paths and joined them on my own map.  The red lines are based on the NWS tornado maps.  I drew the green line to connect the two to see how close it came to our house and Brian and Julie.  It's not right on top of us, but it's close enough! 

 

Kim said that an old barn on Hwy 22 not far from us was ripped to pieces, and I know Brian said he lost some shingles.

 

We never heard the sirens, though I was awake and listening for them.  It was hard to sleep because the house was creaking all around us and it sounded like someone was spraying a firehose against the side of our house.

Arrrrr!

These are the sort of pirates you get with $13 spent at Goodwill and a borrowed wig and boots from Pam.
 

 

Bronze Disease

One my favorite coins in my collection is my Marcus Aurelius silver denarius, minted around A.D. 176-177. A week or so ago, I pulled it out and noticed that there were some real problems with it.

It appears to have "bronze disease," which is a serious affliction for bronze antiquities. This is sort of unusual for a denarius; I'm still sleuthing, but I think it's rare for a Roman silver coin from this time to develop bronze disease. Later in the Empire it's more likely because the silver is more debased. Apparently, at least for this coin, there is enough bronze mixed in with this silver for it to be a problem.

Bronze disease occurs when copper chlorides form in the presence of salt and moisture. It's kind of like a cancerous patina; the formation of new copper chlorides becomes a self-sustaining reaction and the metal starts to eat itself. The chlorides form from the bronze, and slowly (or sometimes, alarmingly quickly) spreads. The bronze turns to bright greenish or brownish powder.

I don't know how far it could spread in a silver denarius of Marcus Aurelius. I guess it's possible that, if the silver content is high enough and the coin is kept dry, it could burn itself out. However, I certainly don't want to test it to see, so I researched the problem and decided to treat it with a solution of sodium sesquicarbonate.

When I first heard of sodium sesquicarbonate, I thought, "Well, that's just one more weird chemical that I don't have at my house and that I probably don't want to fool with." Then I read a recipe for it and realized that I actually had the two ingredients: baking soda and soda ash. I just so happened to have soda ash because I had bought some to use to prepare fabric for tie dying. It's also used for treating swimming pools. Soda ash, therefore, is actually easy to find and pretty cheap.

So I mixed a solution of 5% sodium sesquicarbonate in water (I actually made it a little more diluted, more like 3 or 4%).

I used a soft paint brush to brush off the green corrosion, then used a straight pin to dust it out of the holes and crevices. It came off very easily, which is a sure sign that it really is bronze disease and not patina, though I had no doubts. Then I put it in the sodium sesquicarbonate, which is a very hard word for me to type, by the way, and I'll let it soak there for a few days.

Next, I will take it out, rinse it in distilled water, and then dry it for an hour at a very low temperature in the oven.

With luck, bronze disease won't be back. But if it is, at least I know what to do.

(photos: all the green that you can see on the coin is bad stuff)

Sewing

 

 

TIME Magazine article on The Singularity

I thought this was a very good article:

 

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138-1,00.html
 

 

I find this stuff fascinating, scary, creepy, and exciting.  Will my children be immortal? Will humans be extinct in fifty years? Will my grandchildren by sleek hybrids of genetically modified flesh and steel? Will people still be buying artwork to hang on their walls?

artist links

Artist mentioned in previous post:

http://www.teridryden.com/index.htm

I tried to find a site for Craig Lloyd but, though I found him mentioned in a few places and found out that he teaches art in Cincinnati, I didn't actually find a Web site for him alone.

2011 Water Tower Regional review

On Sunday I went to the opening reception of The Water Tower Regional (open until April 10) and, though I enjoyed the show, I was a little disappointed by the dominance of digitally produced artwork.

I respect and accept digital work, inkjet prints, and digital photography as art, but I don't find it as enjoyable to look at—especially in a gallery setting. When I look at art in person, I want to be able to see the process of its creation. I enjoy the artifacts of the artist and his or her tools left behind in the medium, I appreciate the sense of an artist leaving fingerprints (real or figurative) in the work, I want to be able to change position and note how light plays differently on from different angles on a manipulated surface. You really don't get that much with giclee prints and framed photos.

There weren't many works that met those needs. Of the ones that did, my favorite was just inside the entrance to the exhibit: "Storm," an oil painting by Craig Lloyd of Cincinnati. It struck what was, to me, the perfect balance between convincing representation (as seen from a few steps away) and the interesting presentation of paint strokes on a canvas as objects of interest in and of themselves (close-up view). This is what I want to look at and how I want to paint.

The painting is loaded with tension; I found it impossible not to view it without imagining the storm-cooled breeze beginning to blow around me and feeling like I should check the radio for severe weather alerts.

The second work, which I found to be easily the most interesting artwork in the second room of the exhibit, was "Are We There Yet?" a collage/mixed media work by Louisville artist Teri Dryden. I spoke briefly with Ms. Dryden, who recently moved here from Los Angeles. Her works are comprised chiefly of pieces from old books torn apart and arranged. "Are We There Yet?" was both subtle and complex, and is something I could keep coming back to.

I also enjoyed "Circles of Confusion," an impressively large and complex graphite and oil pastel drawing by Paula J. Dalton; and "Narcissus," Matt Weir's somewhat entrancing sculpture in cast aluminum, chrome plating, and synthetic grass.

The Girl Who

Well, last night I finished The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second book of Stieg Larsson's thriller trilogy about Swedes who have sex with everybody.  I enjoyed it (and could hardly put it down), though I understand criticisms that too much of the plot relied on coincidences.  Too frequently, a character just happened to be in the right place at the right time to see some important event.

 

Now I just need to read the final book to be free of this monkey.

 

I'll probably watch the Swedish movies, and I'm also interested in the American remake of the first movie, which might be out by next Christmas.  It will be set in Sweden, like the books and the previous movies, but this to me presents an aesthetic problem that I think about from time to time with movies.

 

If it's an American film intended for U.S. audiences, how will they do the language?  Most likely, they'll film it in English.  But will the characters have Swedish accents?  If they are filming it in English, why would they bother with the Swedish accents?  Will they adopt some sort of neutral-sounding blend of British and Midwestern U.S. accent?  That sounds like the best policy to me, assuming it would just take too much effort to get the cast to learn all their lines in Swedish.

 

The accent thing bothers me from time to time.  If they are supposed to be speaking in English, but they have an accent, that's fine; and if they are presumed by the audience to be speaking in another tongue, and they don't have any clearly defined (to me) accent, that works for me, too; but if it suddenly dawns on me that they are supposed to be speaking in their native language, but they are delivering their lines in English, and the director is making them adopt a foreign accent, it starts to bug me.

 

 

Art

 

 

I miss painting.  What drove me to switch to primarily pen-and-ink is a desire to be able to work with less mess and set-up, since I don't have studio space.  Unlike with oils, or even the less messy acrylics, all I have to do is pull out my paper and my pens and get to work.

 

It's been a good trade-off, and I value my explorations of pen-and-ink.  Sometime over the next week I'll have to use the gift card that Julie gave me to get some new pens.  The ones I have are good, but I think I'll get some Rapidoliners, which I haven't used in 15 or 20 years.  The pens I'm using now wear out very quickly on rough-surface paper, but I've heard that the Rapidoliners last a lot longer.  I'm eager to give them a try.

 

Anyway, I still miss painting.  I feel like I can apply some of what I've learned in the pen-and-ink process and apply it to acrylics and oils.

 

I'm just not sure what I'll paint.  Last night I dreamed that I was in a painting class at U of L again; it was a busy art room, lots of painting going on.  I have had similar dreams every once in a while for years, maybe since I graduated.  I think that when I first started having the dreams they were typical anxiety dreams:  remembering an assignment the night before it was due, that sort of thing.  Lately, though, they have been more fun.  In last night's dream I had so many ideas, and the means to work on them, in a group of like-minded people.

 

I think I might try working on some small paintings in the near future in a way that occupies a middle-ground between the pen-and-ink work and larger oil paintings.  Perhaps I'll do some subjects similar to my pen and ink subjects, working in acrylics or acrylics with oils on top.  It's been years since used acrylics for anything other than underpainting or tinting, with just a few exceptions.

 

I also want to try another linocut soon.  It might be fun to do a linocut print of the horses I drew recently.  I wonder which would be better, an 8 x 10 inch size or a greeting card size?

Two Old Romans

Here are scans of a couple of coins I've had soaking in distilled water for…I don't know, a couple of years, I guess.  The coins are pretty crummy, and the pictures make them look even worse. I got these in a small lot of uncleaned, unearthed old coins. 

 

Distilled water is the most widely-recommended, safest way to clean them.  I'm supposed to switch out the water every few days, but in reality I've been lucky if I've remembered to do it every few months.  So they have just been sitting in a jar on a shelf.

 

I pulled these two out a few days ago.  They might actually be clean enough to identify.  I'm pretty sure that first one (A) is a coin of Julian II, who ruled the Roman Empire from A.D. 355-363.  He was the last pagan emperor, and also the last of the Constantinian dynasty.

 

I can tell by the style that it's late Roman, and I was finally able to make out what I think is DNIVL, which would stand for D[ominus]N[oster]Julianus," with only the first part of the "Julianus" visible.  "Our Lord Julianus."

 

It's hard to tell in this photo (it's hard to tell in real life, too), but the reverse of A is the common soldier-spearing-a-fallen-horseman design.

 

Coin B is a Constan- something.  Constantine the Great? Constans? Constantius?  I might be able to figure it out with a little more research.  The reverse is two soldiers flanking a standard.  I can read just enough of the reverse legend to be sure it includes the word EXERCITVS, so it probably said GLORIA EXERCITUS, or "Glory to the Army."

 

If both these coins were in much better shape, they'd still only be worth five or ten dollars, probably.

 

I might be able to manage a little more cleaning on them to help with the details.

 

 

IMG00102-20110203-1747.jpg

So hard to get a good shot of this little girl, especially when my camera phone has a slow reaction time.
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Sock

 

Last night Erin was curled up with Kim, and they were looking at a pretty cool application on Kim's new phone.  You can say a word into the phone and it will do an Internet search for that item, producing retailers and prices.

 

Erin decided to search for socks.  She said into the phone, as clearly as she could, "SOCK."  She tried it a few times, but it kept misunderstanding her and searching for other things.

 

Kim: "Maybe try it like you're looking for two socks. Make it plural."

 

Erin: "SOCK SOCK!"

 

Saturday night update

I have shaved off my beard. We are keeping warm with emergency heat since we have a leak in our outdoor unit compressor. Erin and I went swimming today. I lost the gas cap to our van, went back to find it, and there it was-- run over and smashed to pieces. We all saw Curious George at the book store. It was sunny and felt kind of nice outside.
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store

I've been slowly adding to my Zazzle store.

http://www.zazzle.com/KentuckyBristle

Another race horse drawing

I finished this today. It's about 8 x 11 inches. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I like the pose a little more than the last one, but I like my cross-hatching a little less.

Drawing, books, movie

I am nearly done with another horse-and-jockey drawing, similar to the last one. I am also making progress on my drawing of the YUM! Center (lest anyone think that I haven't been attempting to sell out, man.) I'm far enough along that I need to figure out what my next project is going to be. I have a few ideas, I just need to settle on something.

I've lately taken up the idea of working on two things at once, one big, the other small. The bigger ones (like the previous subjects of Farmington and Big Rock, and the YUM! Center currently) are longer-term, larger scale, and done with the intention of just looking more impressive. The smaller ones are ones I can pull out and put away again quickly and easily when I only have ten minutes at a time, or only a few square feet, to work.

I've been reading Nigel Rodgers' Roman Empire, and enjoying it a lot. I've found ancient history somewhat difficult to approach. Most books seem to either want to throw you off the deep end with contemporary, focused accounts that may or may not be very accurate and for which I have little knowledge framework to rely on for context; or they are a very dull sampling of a huge period of time and cultures with little or no attempt to give you a good sense of what life was like for any single person of the ancient world.

Roman Empire seems to bridge that gap pretty well. Comprised of fairly short articles, it gives overviews of many aspects of the Roman Empire, encompassing religion, politics, the economy, the military, clothing, etc. It pulls it all apart and then puts it all back together. It's very easy to flip through; I can read about a battle, encounter a term I don't understand, and then flip to the section on different military ranks for an explanation, then get sidetracked into an summary of some general's reforms in both military and politics. Basically put, the book is neither too smart nor too dumb for my level of knowledge.

Per the recommendation of three or four friends, I also started reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher. I'm not far into it, but so far it's entertaining. I'm told it's not the best of the series of books (about a wizard detective in Chicago).

With those same friends, last Friday night I watch the movie "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World," and I liked it a lot. It's hard to recommend to people, though, because it's such an odd movie. I was a third of the way through it before I started feeling like I was "getting" it. The movie is sort of like if "Wayne's World" cross-bred with a bunch of video games, and the offspring somehow ended up intelligent and attractive.

edit: I should have mentioned, that picture isn't a drawing, it's a facial scan.

The Little People: review

The Little People by John Christopher: my book review

 

This isn't a real book review because I don't want to, and I'm not forced to, write very much on the subject.  So in brief:

 

The cover of this book was very misleading.  Instead of an over-the-top horror romp in a castle infested with whip-cracking Nazi leprechauns, it was a well-paced, psychologically rich character drama involving Nazi leprechauns who, it's mentioned in passing, might occasionally crack whips.

 

The set-up: It's Ireland in the 1960s. A young English woman inherits from an uncle an isolated Irish castle (not really a castle, she learns, but a large country house built on the remains of a castle).  She considers selling it, but opts instead to run it as a vacation spot for tourists—a bed and breakfast situated in the middle of a bog.  She and her fiancé check the place out and are amused at all the little dollhouses her uncle built in his tower workshop before he died. How cute!

 

After running a few ads for the vacation spot, she gets some takers: A bickering American couple and their teenaged daughter, and a German couple troubled by the (figurative) ghosts of post-war German grief and guilt.  They join a young alcoholic Irish lawyer who's been staying at the house helping the Englishwoman get the place up and running, and the Englishwoman's fiancé, who is a London attorney trying to keep a lid on his own superiority complex.

 

Yes, it does sound like a lot of clichés, but the author starts chiseling away at the archetypes, giving them believable backgrounds and reforming them around the details of their existence.  In fact, you could edit out the whole "little people" element and still have a decent book.  They do, however, lend the novel an extra bit of depth as well as mystery (I wouldn't call it horror, exactly; I was never horrified, even when the lights went out and there was an imminent threat of whipping).

 

I also found myself frequently delighted by Christopher's descriptions and choice of words.  The biggest problems I found were in some of the character reactions later in the book; I'm not sure that some of the choices were entirely credible, but they weren't outlandish.  Also, what in 1966 might have passed as a novel premise in fantastic-horror stories now comes across as a little quaint, but like I said, the fantastic-horror element is only part of the draw.

 

This would make an excellent book club discussion book. I'm not joking!  I can easily see hours of debate about character motivations, relationship development, and other storytelling choices.

 

And it's a slim book and a fast read, so if you want to borrow it, I'll let you, sure.

 

 

Alien Invasion

I saw a trailer for the movie "Battle: LA" a couple of days ago. It's about space aliens attacking Earth (again).

Although it looks like it has spectacular visual effects, there is no clue given about alien motivation for the invasion, and I suspect that—as in most alien invasion movies—any reason given will be unrealistic. Maybe they won't give a reason at all. Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" was all the better for not delving into motivation or means. The monsters in that movie were a sudden cataclysm akin to a massive storm or earthquake.

So I was thinking about invading aliens, why they might do it, and how. There are very few scenarios that, in light of the tremendous effort it would take to undertake the conquest of Earth, give a realistic explanation as to why creatures from another planet would try it. But just a few minutes ago I thought of a good one which I had not considered before: to save our souls.

How is this for a great scifi premise: An alien race detects our presence and realizes that we have an intelligence similar to their own, but we're not quite as technologically advanced. These aliens are also very religious.

After a brief period of studying our culture, missionaries arrive. They might not even be very representative of the entire alien species; they might be relatively poorly equipped and underfunded due to a lack of support at home. But they are determined to save us, even if they have to kill us to do so.

There could be several religious factions, just to make it more interesting. One group establishes a stronghold on a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean and takes over most of our airwaves for religious broadcasting, but they are relatively peaceful until earth religious groups attack them. Another fringe alien group destroys Rome and installs their own alien Pope, thinking that they can just take over and convert Roman Catholics that way. Individual aliens establish compounds to preach their own versions of the truth, and look for ways to control human minds in order to reach more converts.

I think this premise is great, and more believable than most. I'm sure I'm far from the first person to think of it, but it's novel to me.

Right to Left

For me, weeks start on the right and flow to the left.  That means this calendar feels more natural to me than others.  However, I could never really use it, because I'd have to switch back and forth between this format and other "normal" formats.

 

I'm sure there is a link, somehow, between this and my mental-year-as-a-counter-clockwise-clock imagery.
 

 

Scanner

 

 

Books

 

Last week I finished reading "Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose" by Lee Alan Dugatin and I thought it was pretty good.  It gave an interesting perspective on the beginning of U.S. history, tying together natural history with the politics and economics of late 18^th and early 19^th Century America and Europe.  It's also a small, quick read.

 

Over the weekend I started reading "The Little People" by John Christopher.  I picked up the book years ago because the cover art was irresistible; and didn't put it back on the shelf because I've read some other things by that author and enjoyed it.  However, I never read it, and it ended up in a storage box until I recently found it.

 

I'm about half way through, and it's pretty good so far, although it's unfolding slowly.

 

That cover art, though. Genius.

Science Cafe

February Louisville Area Skeptics Science Cafe is scheduled:
 http://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Area-Skeptics/calendar/15933616/

 

I'm looking forward to this; I enjoyed this speaker quite a bit the last time, when he talked about "Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose."  Anyone else want to go with me? Let me know.

 

In Pursuit of a Fiend

The gendarme, aghast, walked into a shocking scene. The killer had taken her torso!

Wedding Photo

He's only marrying her because all the other girls he's ever met have expected him to crouch on an egg for four months during a blizzard.

We spent New Year's Eve with Ol' One-Eye and Ms. Snuggie

A little (and I do mean a little) alcohol, combined with the excitement of Skip-Bo, makes these people go wild.

Louisville Science Center

Inside a giant bubble. Is it still a bubble if it's not spherical, or is it a soap tube?

On a space mission

Movies

I've had some discussions with family recently about top-ten movie lists.  Since I haven't blogged much lately, and movie discussions are always good filler, I thought I'd weigh in.  So, Dad and brothers, here's my list.

 

This is a list of just nine films, and just the ones I could think of in a short period of time.  I could easily change my mind and add or subtract from it with more thought. 

 

These are in no particular order, except the first one, which is my favorite.

 

"Miller's Crossing": This is my favorite movie.  I generally enjoy all the Coen Brothers' movies, although there are a few from recent years that I haven't seen.  They are great craftsmen, and all aspects of their work seem so well-integrated into one another.  It all just hangs together so beautifully.  I think "Miller's Crossing" is a great example of this, with the added benefit of being psychologically hard to puzzle out.  I find the main character's goals and motivations obscure.  This, combined with great dialogue, tense action scenes, and lots of plot twists, makes it a movie that I can watch repeatedly.

 

"The Moderns": This late-'80s film about American expatriates living in Paris in the 1920s is weird, pretentious, and full of arts-related in-jokes and caricatures.  It's probably not a movie for everyone, but I like it a lot, perhaps moreso because few people have heard of it.

 

"Rear Window": I've always enjoyed watching Jimmy Steward, and Grace Kelly is great.  The premise is a lot fun, the characters are a lot of fun, and some of the scenes are nerve-wracking. I think this is just an all-around fun movie.

 

"Jaws":  My memory of the first time I saw this—Dad took Kevin and me to see it at the theater during a re-release sometime in the late Seventies—is sort of unpleasant.  It was summer, and I was in shorts and a tank top, and the air conditioned theater was freezing.  I was very uncomfortable to start with, so when helpless innocent people started being eaten by a shark onscreen, I was pretty miserable.  Somehow, though, this did not translate into a hatred of this movie.  The first portion of the film is pretty good, I guess; but what I really like is the latter portion with the three main characters on the fishing boat trying to find and kill the shark.  It's atmospheric, tense, perfectly paced, and packed full of great movie moments.

 

"Star Wars": I can't not include it.  "The Empire Strikes Back" is a superior movie, but I'll have to put in this first film because it struck such a cord.

 

"The Wizard of Oz": Until recently I wouldn't have thought to include this, but I think I must, again partly due to re-watch potential. I've seen this plenty of times, and I still feel like I could see it plenty more without being bored with it.

 

"The Haunting": This was remade recently, and the remake is awful (I haven't seen all of it, and I have no desire to.)  However, the original black-and-white film from the early Sixties has what I want in a horror film, namely creepiness that plays on one's imagination.  I like the very classic haunted house setting.  Yes, a lot of the movie is kind of corny, but it's worth it to me to sit through that for the good stuff.

 

"Lone Star": Another film I can watch repeatedly because of the complex way the characters all relate to one another.  I've watched it with friends who compared it to watching paint dry, but I think it's a great movie that gets better with repeat viewings.

 

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail":  Do I really think it's funny, or do I just think I think it's funny?  How funny would I find it if I saw it for the first time today?  I don't know, but I still think it's really funny.