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My dad was a Gamblin’ Man, and it negatively impacted both his marriages. He also had an appreciation for the unadorned female form–impact unknown, to me at least. I have inherited both these proclivities, and have found through the school of hard knocks that the healthiest way to deal with them is to own up to them, avoid casinos (three-plus years of gambling sobriety and counting!), and love the one I’m with to the exclusion of others, physically anyway. But I still itch, and I still look, so sometimes I “own my shadow” and take a look at one or the other of them, or, in this case, both.

Here are the words to the Gritlock acrostic:

Gamblers fly high then hit the wall
Rise & shimmy & slip & fall–O
It’s a harrowing story arc
Taut with tragedy; tawdry; stark

Here are the words to the Gridluck acrostic:

Got three squares in the office pool
Righteous fare for a Looky-Lou
Idle eyeful of tawny chic
Dares not touch but he’ll take a peek

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I was at the gym, finished with my workout, and so I texted Denise: “Bayou lunch?” (I cannot resist a pun.) She answered in the affirmative, swung by and picked me up in her truck, and since I was buying I picked the place: The Schoolhouse. Sitting across from her there, with her hair uncharacteristically swept away from her beautiful brow, I was struck with a thought of a single word: “Athena.” She looked like the goddess–wise, courageous, and ready to strategize a campaign. So was planted the seed of this page.

Here are the words of the triple acrostic:

Dispensing with hist’ry & like parenthetica
Embracing a mythos & sweet sentiment
Neglectful of nine facts & thrill’d by the tenth
It is most behooving & fitful, this scene
Suggestive of battle & spillage of spleen
Emboss’d on a column & set in Helvetica

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Here is something that was thought out in advance, but executed while not feeling well. The show must go on, and I wanted to post today, but the impatience and shakiness that comes with minor illness is right there on the page. Perhaps I’ll do a do-over after I’m well. I really like the way “hand held” has come to mean something electronic, though it’s still connotative of relaxed love.

Here are the words to the double acrostic:

Holographic novelty is not quite in the flesh
And in vitro is a workaround if you’ve no crèche
NEED is forging our tomorrows but we may forestall
Datamining pseudojoy if we walk parasoled

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Here is the “finished” portrait and eponymous acrostic of Patrick Stewart. Something was lost in the finishing: freshness/likeness. Something was gained: the words that solved the poeticization.

Here are the words:

Picard is SF, so’s Prof X–he plays ’em nonetheless
And fans of Wm. S. and Sammy B. are by him blest
The savviest of thespians will not go toe to toe
Respectfully they take a pew & watch & learn & grow
Intensity is always there from starring role to extra
Comedic, tragic, bleak to brilliant thwarts the glibbest texter
King Lear, King Faud, King Kong, Candide–he’d be in all parts expert

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After nine and a half hours on the job, the next five-at-least better be in Slumberland.

PS WIP equals Patrick Stewart Work In Progress. I tried doing a PS a few years ago; people thought the drawing was good, but they couldn’t tell who it was.

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This is dedicated to all of us who have struggled against a bad habit and succeeded, however fleetingly.

Here are the words to the double (and double-entendre) acrostic:

YO! Quit that AWFUL habit! Play it straight
Your quality of H O P E will escalate
Obsequious, the vice purveyors win
Obliquely when the helpless rack up sins
Ubiquity might keep us on the trail
Uniqueness and good Purpose gets us hale

Astute observers will have noticed six of the letter Q lined up on the left side of the poem/array, and six of the letter P lined up on the right. Coincidence? Absolutely not. I have done my best to mind my Ps and Qs. [wicked smile]

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Many art supply stores have wooden pose-able models in sizes from keychain to full scale. The one double-track-drawn here is about four inches high. I took approximately the same liberties with flexure and expression as Gene Colan did with his renderings of Iron Man, lo these several decades past.

(About seven years ago I sent “Genial Gene” a gushing fan e-mail, praising his storytelling illustration, and he quickly and nicely answered in true gentleman fashion. Just found out three minutes ago that he died in 2011. Alas! Here’s a link for the curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Colan )

Anyway, it occurred to me that these anonymous mannequinesques would make good chess pawns, and I’ve been into grids lately, so…

Here are the words, for the third time, sort of:

Participants should come a’board’–we’ll start ASAP
And then ‘square’ off in reenacted war or game or deal
Whine, loose or drawl: no ‘stale mate’ allowed, nor bargained plea
Nor b’rook’ing op’position’ via mattress glue–too sealy

 

Today the blogmonth ends with a visual experiment. A doodly beginning to a possible page was accordion-folded and then scanned with a white eraser holding the scanner cover slightly opened. Subsequently, midtones and contrast and color of the image were boosted and/or altered using a photo editor. Conclusion: could set off the right image nicely; could be a distracting gimmick otherwise…

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