Revealed at long last, the REAL message on the back of the $1 Bill: “Tat Me One, Doll.”
Again, Friends: Happy Holidays!
Here as promised is a better spoon than the spoon I posted and promised to do a better one than. As for the double word acrostic, I decided on single-word lines for simplicity’s sake and then went shopping in the enormous dictionary near the front desk where I work at work. I’d never encountered the word “supposititious” before, and was delighted to find it could mean either Fraudulent or Hypothetical. Once I had Supposititious, I knew I wanted more words that were spooky-special. The last, Necronomicon, is a tip of the hat to H.P. Lovecraft and his disciples.
“Onomatopoetical” yields a squiggly red line when typed, but “Onomatopoetic” does not. Chalk it up to poetical license, and another hat-tip to a literary gent, this one Charles Dickens, who wrote “The Poetical Young Gentleman.”
“Obbligato” according to the dictionary is that part of a musical performance that is absolutely essential and must not be omitted.
“Phenomena” is the plural of Phenomenon. It is amazing how many newscasters think “phenomena” is singular. –Actually, it IS singular in the sense of Uniqueness; that it can be both Singular and Plural heterodynes its singularity.
These, then, are five of the most numinous words I could find. As for “Numinous,” it means “having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.”
Here is a detail from an original clay sculpture of mine that I have offered as a raffle item for the 5th Anniversary Holiday Celebration of the Village Gallery in the Village of Oak Creek. A maniacal bird of no particular species doubles as a prison within which a crowned and hollow-headed Kirk Douglas languishes.
Here is the piece entire:
This picture was taken in March of 2008, in the back yard of a house I once co-owned. I was still married, still living in Phoenix, still unpublished except in college literary magazines and the editorial pages of the local newspaper. So much has changed.
Here is the invitation to the Holiday Celebration, which takes place tomorrow, December 15, 2013, from 1 to 5 PM.
I won’t be there the whole time, since I’ll have to get some shuteye prior to my 11PM-7AM shift at work and do a 40-plus mile to&from. But I hope to see my creation go to a good home, and I hope to hear some good music, and I hope to meet at least one person whom I’ve never met who follows this blog…
The tree looks great for the most part:
But it lacks something at the top. “Why don’t I do a ceramic angel?” I asked my angelic girlfriend. She seemed skeptical that I could, especially since it would have to be done well before the 23rd, when her kin from all over will gather.
Today I’ve taken the first step, the “concept rough.” I want the angel to be friendly, accessible, celestial, and playful. I want the wings to look as if they will grab air and move it forcibly. I want her gesture to be beneficent and dynamic.
She’ll be either Sedona Red or Dave’s Porcelain or a marbled mix of both. She’ll have to be ready for bisque fire by the end of the weekend, and glaze-if-any (though she might look fine unglazed) by the 19th.
Will it happen? If it does, I’ll show and tell. If not, I’ll hang my head in shame.
Here is an image of two drawings that, overlapping, pose a philosophical question. What are the boundaries of Where? And what’s This, and is This subject to change without notice? When then, does This become That and then subside back into This?
All of that may seem like a lot of nonsense, but strong evidence suggests that everything real is, on the subatomic level, constantly winking in and out of existence–except that “winking in and out of existence” is an inherent failure of our language to even come close to describing this phenomenon. A particle found somewhere in a zone of probability is un-pin-downable, and instruments of detection themselves interfere with attempts to do so.
Have a good breakfast is my advice. [Innocent smile]
My superb friend Karen and her superb boyfriend Ed capture sea life on camera when they scuba-dive. Karen took the photo from which my drawing was derived. I have her gracious permission to use it; and it will get further use below in its reproduction to illustrate the difference between Art and Life:
slumber rose off him like cold steam
he muttering “wig…thaw
wig.thaw
wig,”
and fluttering eyes made the muttering stop
she beside him propped on elbow leaned over him
and sight met sight and she asked him:
“what’s wigthaw, love?”
briefly he puzzled
then the browfurrow smoothed
“i said that? –it’s acronymical
comical really…”
they kissed and he continued,
“‘whatever is going to happen
has already happened.’ that’s spelled
dubya eye gee tee aitch
aitch ay aitch
and is pronounced ‘wigthaw.'”
they kissed again.
“you are odd-minded,” she opined.
“you had to say that,” he returned,
and kissed her again
as he must.
Stan Lee, like many of the superheroes he wrote comic-book continuity for, has feet of clay. He’s hyberbolic, a credit hog, and an attention craver. But any kid who grew up during the Silver Age of Marvel Comics could not help but be influenced by him. My sometime tendency toward wisecracking and alliteration may reflect this influence. So I devoted 73 seconds to doing his portrait.
Last I heard he was still alive. Excelsior, Stan! ‘Nuff Said! Except…as the pirate said to the Q-Tips: “Avast, ye swabs!”