Being a city kid, I don’t have much of a feel for farms, so I did a search on aerial photos of farms and faked up the phony-baloney farm above. Sorry to report that my enthusiasm for Inktober has waned and I’m glad that this one gets it over with for now.
This is my two thousandth published Blog Post, Friends, and I want to make it count. So I am using it for advocacy. I wish to urge Arizona voters not to vote for gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Ms. Lake took the Republican primary via her glib and charismatic stage presence, her endorsement from Donald Trump, and her remarkable ability to turn into a barracuda every time a journalist asked her a question she didn’t like. And now she is attackiing and lying her way to the Governor’s office, and if Arizonans fall for her attractive lies, she may well win.
But don’t take my word for it. As a subscriber to azcentral dot com, the online component of the media entity that also publishes the Arizona Republic, I get newspaper headlines like these on my feed. If I call Lake a glib liar, I’m not being the Lone Ranger here.
In the primary Lake put up a kajillion posters of herself side by side with Donald Trump, proudly proclaiming “TRUMP ENDORSED.” Now that she’s won the primary, and Trump is in all kinds of legal trouble, her photoless posters say “POLICE ENDORSED.” Her many years as a newscaster have empowered her to turn on a dime as far as emphasis goes. She can pull viewers one way with an earthquake megadeath or serial-killer story and one minute later switch to the “lighter side” with something that makes people laugh and sigh happily. And this is what makes her dangerous, Friends. If only she were a Force For Good, that would be a valuable superpower. But she is a force for the same evil that got us a million dead in the ongoing pandemic. Because though she dropped Trump from her posters, she is still 100% in favor of his policies. And her style of attacking journalists and telling pants-on-fire lies is identical to his.
So please: do not vote for Kari Lake.
Kari Lake
Kidnap Truth and send to HelL
Anthony Fauci–HE’s to blame. A
Rigged Vote played like Lawrence WelK
Invests a gal who plays Trump’s gamE
I have drawn Ms. Lake saying “ARREST Dr. Fauci!” She has said that. “SEE 2000 Mules!” She has urged people to view this election-fraud propaganda product of Trump catspaw Dinesh D’Souza, a film that even William Barr dismisses as “bullshit.” “Vote for ME!” may not be a direct quote, but every candidate says that simply by running for office. But I take a bit of satiric/symbolic liberty with her last word balloon, which says “PUT Arizona in the hand that held Trump.” Infer from that what you will.
I did two takes on today’s “Gear” prompt. I can’t decide which one I dislike more. Sometimes the Magic eludes.
1) Guy walking with armload of books, papers, packages says “Heavy!” 2) A paper slips out and drifts to ground. Guy: “Whoops” 3) Guy reaches down with one hand for the paper. As he says “Nngh” with exertion, the unstable stack starts to topple. 4) Guy topples too and says “Ah Jeez” 5) Guy starts to pick himself up and turns and sees a large vehicle barreling toward him. Uh-Oh!!!
This is the soul of slapstick: a chain of ever-worsening events leading to exciting disaster. My drawing style, barely coherent, is slapstickily chaotic as well. So this text serves as libretto (Italian. Literally “little book” but “cheat sheet” is a more apt translation) to the scribbly operetta above.
In the mid-1980s I went camping three times in Havasupai, the west end of the Grand Canyon, with family and friends. This drawing looks nothing like Havasupai but I threw the helicopter in because if you took that 10-mile trek to the Havasupai campsite, by mule or on foot, and then found yourself unable or unwilling to go out the way you came in, there was a helicopter ferry service. Cost per person, in 1985 US Dollars: $500.
To each their own.
Egomaniac
Mumbled, exploded, with will to absorB
All that young stuff that’d come to his dooR
Restless a c q u i s i t i v e n e s s his agorA
Loved making cuckolds of husbands of womeN
Overindulgence and theft unmisgiveneD
Ne’er-do-well gaming the scene like NintendO
Egomaniac
Mumbled, exploded, with will to absorB
All that young stuff that’d come to his dooR
Restless a c q u i s i t i v e n e s s his agorA
Loved making cuckolds of husbands of womeN
Overindulgence and theft unmisgiveneD
Ne’er-do-well gaming the scene like NintendO
Today’s prompt is “Tempting.” Tempting to me implies that the activity of allure is something we are supposed to avoid. So I loaded an index card with artifacts of gambling, alcoholism, satisfaction of raw lust, hard drug addiction, and violence. It was only after I’d finished the image that it occurred to me that the word Tempting is of eight letters that divide in have to a nifty shorthand DEFINITION of Temptation: Temp (temporary) Ting (tingle). The acrostic poem follows, as minimalist as I could make it and still qualify as a poem. (Note: the four words Testament, Ennui, Meditation, and Playacting would comprise a more minimalist solution, but the mental gymnastics involved in justifying their relevance to “Tempting” would throw my psychic back out, so I backed out of the route.
Temp Ting: Tomorrow we’ll be penitent•Engulfed in guilt/ennui•Must focus on the NOW not then•Please say OMFG.
As a young child I read voraciously from the fairy-tale books on our bookshelves. There were some from Andrew Lang’s series, some Howard Pyle, an Edmund Dulac, and something called something like Seven Stories of Seven Wishes. But the best fairy-story I ever read came later, from J.R.R. Tolkien: “Smith of Wootton Major.” In it Smith, called Starbrow because of a glowing trinket affixed to his forehead, explores the land of Faery and unknowingly meets, and dances with, its Queen. Tolkien’s Queen of Faery reminds me of a friend of mine.
One with Clay, Image and Text 