Pendant

Obviously, I’m not actually a jewelry artist, but instead just a pretend one. Still, of all the dumb junk I’ve made this semester, I like this piece the best (although, as usual, the picture’s pretty crummy). The idea, of course, isn’t very original, but at this point I’m lucky I can figure out how to get any sort of a shape from a sheet of metal. We’ll see if I can come up with any better designs anytime soon.

Meanwhile, here’s a thrilling picture of my actual workspace to prove I did some actual work today. (It’s also proof I have no idea what I’m doing, work-wise. I mean, what’s with all the pointy shapes? Who knows.)

Eden

Somehow, I was able to pass a giant scary test in American Literature earlier today. So that’s good, I guess. Now I can forget every single thing I ever knew about any book ever published in the United States. Which is nice, ’cause I love forgetting stuff. First, I’m gonna forget all about James Fenimore Cooper, then I’m gonna work on forgetting Edith Wharton. Although, I guess I could hold on to a couple of warm old book memories for just a little while longer…like, I’ll wait a week or two before I purge my Cordwainer Smith files. And, well, all right, I’ll admit I don’t want to completely disremember Doc Smith, ’cause there’s something counter-intuitively glorious about awful prose.

Meanwhile, to celebrate, here’s more pointless art, which I did this afternoon instead of doing what I was supposed to do, which was yet more school-related stuff. (Does all this endless schoolwork ever lead anywhere?)

Anyhow, this book cover is, of course, done in a style that’s so un-fashionable, there’s not even half a chance it’ll be fashionable again, even in an ironic way. But, whatever, it’s fun to pretend they’re gonna reissue these books with weird retro covers. Not that this drawing’s a huge success…but, I’m still re-learning how to even draw at all, so I’m gonna leave it alone how it is and move on to other things.

Solaris

This is kind of a waste of time, but at least it’s the fun sort (sort of). Anyway, I got annoyed by the Solaris cover I posted down below, so here’s another version, which I’m sure will annoy me in turn in a week or so. I still kind of wish the space station was down lower, but I needed it where I moved it, for some mysterious reason.

Illustration Friday – Repair

My uncle, the Ham Enthusiast, was always messing around with the innards of all his many, many radios. The things is, I think he mostly kind of un-repaired ‘em instead of fixing ‘em, ’cause not a single one was in working order when he finally flew up to Radio Heaven.

Lem Cover

Just messing around with some half-baked ideas while taking a really short break away from studying. Anyhow, obviously, this sketch is pretty good evidence how much I love Richard Powers and how much I even more wish paperbacks still had covers like they used to have, back in the heyday of the Space Age, whenever that was. Of course, this thing could stand to get developed some more, but I don’t have time to deal with it right now.

Haircut Chart

When we were in England, my fourth favorite thing (behind taking a walking tour in Bath and having dinner twice at The Old Amalfi in Bloomsbury) was when we saw some handmade haircut charts in the British Museum. Which, ’cause I’m a crummy photographer, and ’cause I’m always nervous a docent’s gonna yell at me for even taking pictures, the picture I’ve got of this particular exhibit’s way too blurry to post, so just go ahead and imagine it. Basically, there were five or six numbered heads on each board, and each head sported a different fancy hairstyle. Anyhow, it was a very cool image, all those kinds of haircuts you could choose from in whatever barber shop in whatever faraway country (somewhere in Africa, I think). I especially loved the random blue border at the bottom of one of the signs and also the fact that a couple of bald guys were featured beside guys with more than the usual amount of pompadour action. (Wasn’t there some kind of similar chart in the Coen Brothers film The Man Who Wasn’t There? Can’t remember now, maybe the barber was just listing hairstyles in his voiceover.) So, anyway, that’s the deal with my drawing, in case it’s not already obvious, which, you never know, maybe it’s not. Of course, the original version’s the best, but maybe I’ll be as good as that anonymous sign painter in about 100 thousand more years.

Battleship Linoleum

So, when I’m old, which’ll be in about five more years, my big plan is, I’m gonna sit on park benches all day long and draw billions of little triangles in spiral notebooks. Plus, I guess I’ll feed birds, too, but I’m mostly gonna be concerned with the triangles. Anyway, to get ready for all that, I cut this sort of pointless lino block earlier today, and now I have to go and cut another one. Then, maybe I’ll go and draw something else entirely, unless I get distracted by a bumblebee or whatever.

Vote!

If every single person who’s registered to vote would actually go and cast a vote, then this would be a good and amazing thing. I mean, despite the fact that a lot of people will, for some completely unknown reason, vote for the Other Guy, it’s still way better to cast a vote than to ever sit an election out. It’s good for the heart and the soul and, also, apparently, the old muscle tone. And, voting’s like getting your complaint permit validated (not that we need permits, but you know what I mean).

So, anyway, here are the early voting schedules for the places we’re connected to, although I know everyone we know who lives in these places already knows about early voting:

Maricopa County, AZ

Pima County, AZ

San Diego County, CA

Cook County, IL

Amherst, MA

Davidson County, TN

Wilson County, TN

Also, two more things:

First, Maureen Dowd had a great quote from Seneca in her October 11th editorial: “Avoid whatever is approved of by the mob.”

Of course, I hope by now the difference between a mob and a movement is completely obvious. A mob, as we’ve been reminded lately, is a bunch of angry, impotent, small-minded, and completely backward folks shouting out racial epithets and threats at political rallies. A movement is a massive number of inspired, progressive, innovative, and brilliant people getting together to fight for the common good. But, if someone out there still can’t figure out which crowd to join, maybe this will help: mobs are downright pathetic, sad, and depressing, and also often enough really scary and dangerous; movements, on the other hand, are fun and full of energy and life and great ideas and are the best hope for the future. If, of course, they’re movements on the Blue/Green side of the divide…movements on the other side are really just well-organized mobs.

Second, Frank Rich’s editorial on October 11th was the best piece I’ve read in a while about the whole issue of the Grumpy Old Party acting really, really ugly. Says it all much better than I said it here. So go read him instead of me and I’ll go back to drawing my dumb little drawings.

Otherwise, here’s a picture to show how much I support America’s planetariums and telescopes (like, one of my thirty-seven hobbies is, I go around the country getting my picture made with famous telescopes – they’re way more cooperative than celebrities and sports stars). So, that’s why I’m gonna cast my vote for the candidate who recognizes how important it is school kids have interesting places to go to on field trips. Like, I remember when we went to a planetarium in whatever grade it was back in caveman times, and we learned all about the constellations and the various and sundry moons and also got treated to a rocking laser show (to this day, the only way I can enjoy Pink Floyd is if my retinas are being bathed in massive doses of laser light – if “enjoy” is the right word, which I don’t think it is). In other words, any candidate who’s against planetariums is a candidate I just plain cannot support. Plus, of course, all the millions of other reasons for not supporting him.

Old World

Anyway, so here’s the other half of that so-called ‘zine-like project I was talking about. And, yeah, I know I already posted one of these pages, but now it’s in context, assuming that matters at all, considering the shape the world’s in. Meanwhile, even though I’m supposedly studying for various CLEPs and also for a giant and frightening Algebra exam, I’m for some reason really stuck on reading The Grapes of Wrath. Like, there’s no pressing reason to do it…but, once you get past the turtle chapter, it turns out it’s a pretty ripping yarn (I mean, the turtle chapter’s okay, except it makes you wonder a little about when exactly the story’s gonna start). Anyhow, I just finished the scene with the one-eyed man at the junkyard, the one Tom and Al get a piston rod from. I love that guy, despite his general grossness, and wish he was in a spin-off book, ’cause he’s such a magnificent specimen of the classic American loser. I mean, he’s the exact same kind of person we have nowadays, too…somebody who’ll complain heartily about the current state of affairs, and yet will go ahead and vote for a candidate who offers nothing but more of the same b.s., just ’cause, I guess, those kind of people like to complain instead of doing something constructive, like voting for a candidate who’s whip-smart and decent and chock-full of youthful energy. Anyhow, I reckon that’s why I also love it when Tom gets annoyed with the one-eyed guy and tells him how he oughta just get an eyepatch and quit whining about how crappy his life is.

Otherwise, I’m totally looking forward to reading Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. My wife (who rocks, in case I haven’t mentioned it today) brought back a signed copy from the book festival they had here this weekend. I couldn’t go on account of the Algebra, but I’m glad she got to meet Mr. Alexie, who also rocks.

P.S. Don’t get me wrong: complaining about the current state of affairs is a perfectly understandable reaction to eight years of corruption, incompetence, and just all-around tom-foolery. But, you know, in a few weeks we have a chance to do something about it and change things for the better, so it’s a complete mystery to me why some folks keep clinging to the idea that some guy with nothing but old, outdated ideas is the way to go. ‘Cause he’s so not.

P.P.S Why, why do I even have to take Algebra, given my incredibly advanced case of senility?

Illustration Friday – Strings

Seriously, America, beware of crotchety old men who enjoy telling lies and spreading hate and venom and lighting fires under mobs.