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notes 2018 12 11

Often when I go out and about on public transportation I take index cards and drawing utensils with me. Until this week, though, whatever I drew doing that that found its way to a blog post was first photographed by my smartphone, then photoedited with the smartphone software.

Now I have more freedom. A week ago I took advantage of a going-out-of-business sale to buy a color laser printer. Like all such printers nowadays, this one has scan capability. I’ve hooked it up to my laptop and am now able to scan what I draw on its scanning bed. So today I took a few of my drawings made on my jaunts and montaged them.

Once scanned, I am able to use Microsoft Photo Editor, the photoediting software that came with the operating system that came with my laptop, to crop, rotate, adjust color levels, and–by far the tool I use most of all–adjust brightness and contrast. “Adjust midtone levels only” is my bread and butter for helping my little drawings pack the punch they do.

I will still be using my smartphone. It enables me to capture images on the fly, anywhere, and post them in real time. But the ‘flavor’ of my images will be different with this new capability, and I’m hoping 2019 will see better presentation of images and the content behind them.

20181208_050325

When I pulled up my phone to take a photo of this card I found that the warm shadows of my fingers made a pleasing enhancement of the image, so I did without flash, took the shot, and then used the photo editor to strike the best bargain between image and shadow. I like the implicit demonstration of the Heisenberg principle that the act of observation changes what is being observed.

Along that line of thought, I at first gave the image the title “-esque,” because it has become a bit different from what it was (or is–we’re playing with Reality here). But my next thought was “‘-esque’ or ‘-ish’?” (There’s Differences in them thar Differences, said the Meaning Prospector.) And THAT brought You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto to mind, and THAT yielded the title it now has.

20181207_052517

Me: Am I gonna hurt tomorrow?

Dr. Ahn: YES.

It is now Tomorrow. Ow.

Tooth B Gone

The dentist like the KGB

Omits to give an H•U•G

Observe as in your mouth he go

To exfiltrate to parts unknown

He has extracted faulty bone

 

20181206_071133

This was all done under the influence of a severe toothache, but I am happy to say the work was engaging enough to distract away the pain for awhile. Now that the work is done the ache is back in full force; but I earned this toothache, and I own it. –The heck with THAT phony-baloney posturing–I’m going for the Oil of Cloves pronto! 🙂

family & vortex

famine & color TV
anthem & o sole mio
migraines & 4 on the floor
insight & clever retort
lattice & tree felled by axe
yelling & time to relax

Note: I have a dentist’s appointment for 11:30 this morning. Please wish me luck!

20181205_051849

Here is a consummate professional AND a real Sweetheart. Her husband Zach (or Zac, or Zak, or Zack? unsure), who tends bar at Zipp’s, says “I’m good, but she’s a REAL Bartender.”

Yesterday Katie accidentally video-called me, and so I had a screen shot to work from. My drawing doesn’t do her justice though. Needs to be much more Glow-y.

She used to call me Gair-Bear, but now she calls me Gary Berry. “Move it, Gary Berry,” she says playfully, when I’m in her way behind the bar. I’ll take it. She can call me whatever she wants to.

20181204_081852

The third grade art teacher told the class to make a word that is self-descriptive. So “TALL” would have long, skinny letters and “fuzzy” would look like it was growing hair.

Here is a supplement to my Project Finishline. I don’t remember the word I did in 1963, but I do remember thinking that I could have done better. So 55 years after the fact, this assignment is finished–sort of. It’s subtle. The word is not impeding, but impeded. But that itself makes the word an impediment to completion. But that makes it not an impediment. But that makes it an impediment…

20181203_134556

Six years ago today this blog was created. I had a Sweetheart but not a job. I lived in an amazing place, with a climate and scenery much different from where I now reside. And I had been posting my creative efforts on eons.com, a site that is now defunct.

This post is called “adversarial anniversary” because this blog is particularly challenging on milestone dates. What can I show or say that I haven’t said or shown already, and perhaps better, in one or more of my 1,219 previous posts?

My answer is this page, which reveals the unfolding of things, and acrosticizes the challenge with these words:

animus begone via arcana
deliverance arrives, saves bacon
veracity is on a train to Macon
endorphins jazz and dissipate ennui
reconnaissance and chicken say Kiev
Susquehanna sustains sequence
animals wander two and four
rigidity rigorizes mortis
it is as odd as dancing paramecia

ad libitum drives endeavor
licensure makes lively

At the bottom right of the page is most of a quotation from Dan Jenkins, the author of Semi-Tough and Life Its Ownself. I left out the last part because I don’t know if it is true, but here is the quotation, used by some Southerners in a toast with bourbon whiskey, entire:

“We come into the world naked and bare. We go through the world with trouble and care. We depart from this world to we know not where. But if we’re thoroughbreds here, we’ll be thoroughbreds there.”

In my illustration I have a winding path that starts with a baby and ALMOST ends with a question mark. But there is more path beyond. May it always be so.