Well We Got Through March

By the skin of our teeth. I don't think I need to point out that this is the death-month of Caesar, and also one that has a Friday the 13th. But have you considered that March is also the mirror month of October- the hauntedest month on the calendar? It's also in that triumvirate of creepy single-syllable months, and the one whose (awkward) abbreviation shortens it from a military command to a word meaning "to damage." I don't trust March, but now it's gone and we can all welcome Spring Proper.

I don't have a photo for this post, but I do have a crazy-intense quote from a book I'm reading. A couple stanzas of "The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly" from Finnegan's Wake. To give you some context: This is a song sung by a man about himself, though the singer and subject seem unaware (or perhaps just unconcerned) of their shared identity. The subject has committed some unnamed sexual sin- whether rape, incest, or the use of contraceptives is unclear, though each is suggested- and the song expresses his guilt about it. Also, he fell off a wall and is now dead.

The Ballad of Perse O'Reilly (select stanzas)

(1) Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And Curled up like Lord Olafa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall
of the Magazine Wall
Hump, helmet and all?

(14) That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey
Made bold a maid to woo
Woohoo, what'll she doo!
The general lost her maidenloo!

(17) 'Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won't there be earwigs on the green?
Big earwigs on the green,
The largest ever you seen

(19) Then we'll have a free trade Gael's' band and mass meeting
For to sod the brave son of Scandiknavery.
And we'll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and Danes
With the deaf and dumb Danes,
And all their remains.

(20) And not all the king's men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there's no true spell in Connacht or hell
That's able to raise a Cain.

That ballad is so intense it leaves me not knowin' what to do. If you want to read the whole thing you can do so here. Gabe noted the amusing union of the words "frau" and "shrew" in stanza 17.

I like the color in this picture. Today I got a decent amount done: 13 pages on the screenplay, and a walk cycle on an animation. Gabe and I also had a painting night. It was neat, Gabe was doing this cool blue and red fire thing, and I painted a beer bottle in brown and red. Then we both drew a space slug together, out of the remnants of my first attempt at the bottle.

10th Street House

I want to own a house in Brooklyn. I need to find a million bucks.



p.s. I think the way that blogger spaced that made it look like a poem, but it's not.

Come On, Fool Porterfull

Gabe and I were at local bar, Harry Boland's (from which this picture was taken) reading Finnegan's Wake (from which this title was taken) tonight. As we were reading about a drunken caveman, we were approached by Tim. Tim is a fan of Finnegan's Wake, and rendered a dramatic reading of the first/last sentence from memory. The next thirty minutes were a whirlwind of Tim opening the book to pages which were roughly near pages he thought he remembered enjoying, Tim confusing Finnegan's Wake for other books, and Tim accidentally confusing Gabe's beer for Tim's shot. It was utterly delightful, and we're hoping to see him there on our next excursion this Saturday.

P.S. I blame my lack of posts recently on this being my dear brother's birth-weekend (and if you forgot to wish him a happy one, shame on you) and the fact that the weekend, in which I full expected 72 hours for picture taking, doctoring, and the writing of posts only lasted 71 hours. Blame the farmers, folks. They've screwed everything up. Again.

Sunset

It was a nice sunset, but now it's dead.

I went into the city today with the intention of maybe getting a small art piece. It turns out that if you walk into a store to buy art, that means it's 10,000 dollars. Now back home that number is explicitly reserved for hyperboles. None of that here though. Jeez a loo, ten thousand bucks. Where am I gonna get that kinda money? I really want the picture, but... ah, oh well. In related news, I'm thinking of becoming a day trader as my day job.

Yesterday and Today

Well, I almost gave up on putting up a photo today. But then I said no! It must happen! So here's a picture of the burrito I had for lunch. It was, as you might expect from the picture, delicious.

I want to blame yesterday on the low battery my camera had, but that's really no excuse. There's a local bookstore here called "The Strand", which claims to have 18 miles of books. They have a "photograph the strand" contest going on right now which I think I might enter. You'll see my pictures at least, even if no one else does. I bet it'll be hard getting a unique shot in a place with so many obviously cool ones. We'll see.

More Simple Shapes

I think I want to try to start finding more human subjects. The abstracts are good practice, but they don't really matter. If I could start using what I'm learning about shapes and composition to actually comment on people and create characters that would be a much more valuable contribution.

Gabe and I had these fancy super-Guinesses at a pub today. They were super. The bartender poured them such that a clover appeared in the foam. Now that's class.

We also got a little acrylic paint, and I've been playing with that for the last hour or two. That stuff is fun. I hope I can get good at it.

It's a Blizzard!

Well, not really, but it's the closest that I've ever seen. This finally gave me an opportunity to bust out the macro lens and see what was what. I had a dream last night in which someone told me that I should put the picture at the bottom of my blog post today, so that's what I'm doing.

This was a Crazy Cheese Shop

I thought these things only happened in super classy places, like Paris or London. Turns out New York makes the cut (never before has cutting the cheese been a signifier of classiness.)

Well, Gabe and I are loaded up with three pounds of cheese, so we'll see where that takes us. Actually none of them are the ones you see advertised here, which is strange because almost all our selections were from their sales.

Work continues on the writing front, and the drawing. I'm trying to get into the habit of drawing at least one detailed picture every day, but it's tough. It definitely helps with the writing: lets me alternate.

Update Dictated by Immediate Sensory Input: CHASE BANK has an amazing new commercial, which makes me hate them more. It's not the one linked, but it's in the same campaign.