Tales from the Bookstore: Precicious Child #1

So I have acquired an exciting new job at a local independent bookstore. I am very happy there. I like my coworkers and I enjoy the work and the customers and the windows and everything. No more dogs. Except my own of course. I am mad at them right now because despite my best efforts they got into my Christmas candy today (I was only away for 4 hours, but that's all it takes) and made themselves very sick. I came home to a lot of vomit, which I guess is good because if they hadn't thrown up all over everything I own they'd probably have died. If they don't die I may still murder them. Right now the puppy is crying because they are confined to a cage in the living room lined with piddle pads. Tough shit Bertie. I'm not letting you sleep with me until I am completely satisfied that the bouts of diarrhea and vomiting are completely over. Anyway, this has nothing to do with the precocious child.

Thus far at the bookstore there have been several precocious children. There was one grandmother who came in with three granddaughters and let them all pick out their own books and they spent a loooong time pouring through the stacks. Another lady came in last week and asked to see the children's atlases. Her 9 year old grandson (or possibly nephew?) likes maps to the exclusion of all else. The maps in the children's atlases sucked so I suggested we look at the regular atlases that had all sorts of precise detailed maps in them. She said she was worried about him lugging a big heavy book around. I said I'd willingly dragged all sorts of heavy books with me when I was a kid. She replied that she wasn't worried about him, she was worried about his parents reaction because apparently he would insist on taking it with him where ever he went. He had even dragged one of his maps to the ballet and got very upset if he had to leave it behind. So I suggested maybe the small pocket atlas, or one of each, the big one for home and the pocket for travel. Don't know what she finally decided but it was hilarious listening to her talk about this kid. I figure he'll either become a cartographer or he'll grow out of it and be pissed when people keep giving him maps for the rest of his life.

But the best precocious child was the one who was in today. She was 9 or 10 and wearing one of those knit hats with the long strings and it had teddy bear ears. She came up to my register and said she was looking for the "grown up" version of The Secret Garden.

"Do you mean unabridged?" I asked. She frowned and I could tell she didn't know what that word meant.

"I want one with the whole story. Not one with parts missing."

"I know exactly what you mean," I said. "I don't like the ones with parts missing either."

I showed her over to the wall of Children's Classics. The Secret Garden was on the top shelf, and it's public domain so there are lots of versions both abridged and unabridged. I pulled one down at random and checked.

"See?" I said. "This is the one you're looking for. If it says 'unabridged' that means it's the whole book." She said something about wanting one by the real author and pointed to the version on our bargain rack. The bargain books are lots of 'childrens' books like Frankenstein or Dracula or Romeo and Juliet. All public domain and most are abridged to one degree or another. But they're also nice hardcovers that are cheaper than most paperbacks. The book she's pointed to has a note along the side that says "adapted from Burnett's original version."

"That's how I knew it wasn't the real one," she said.

"Ah, sharp eye!" I said. I was absolutely delighted with her, and moreso when she came up with her mom and her sister and a huge stack of books for all three of them. We can despair for some of today's youth, but not for this one.

Obscene Poetry

So I spent (wasted) several hours today going through old writing. I couldn't find what I was looking for which means I'll probably have to turn on my old piece o' shit e-machine to get at it.

However I did find a poem I wrote during my senior year of college when I should have been working on a paper. I had stolen some lilies from the opening of the senior show and they were just disgustingly slutty. Pretty though. Also they set off all my allergies.

Bright, brazen petals entreat, "Come, delve into my soft folds. Plumb the sweet nectar of my depths."

The heads of turgid, upthrust pistils glisten and drip with clear, sticky sap. The stamens, erect and velvety, beg for something, anything, to rub against them and relieve them of the thick coating of pollen that has made them so thick, flushed and dark.

The flowers accost passersby with their intoxicating scent, fairly shouting, "Come on baby! Pollinate me! Fuck yeah!"

Some Cartoons

I thought I would share my work from class 2 at Animation Mentor. I went a little crazy from stress so am currently taking a break and will restart class 3 in January. I won't show you any of the work from my abortive class 3 attempt because it was all...not ghastly, just half finished. I was never able to put time into any of it to get it up to the (my) required standard. But I liked what I did for class 2.

1st Project- Side Step (turned into more of a hop)


2nd Project- Dive


3rd Project- Dance (this dance was a bit over ambitious because this dude was a crazy awesome dancer, but even though it still needs work (re: arm flailing) I'm pleased with most of it)

Things that make me sob uncontrollably

OK, so I was having a discussion with a friend about Kermit the Frog and I had a sudden urge to listen to A Frog and His Boy.



And as I was drying my eyes I started thinking about other things I have this reaction to. I mean, yeah I cry at lots of things. I could put Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan on this list (there's a whole category opposite this of things that make me cry but that I hate having that reaction to, like stupid chick flicks), but I was thinking of things I repeatedly expose myself to willingly, knowing it will make be cry but just not caring.

The list isn't as long as I'd expect but then I'm probably forgetting things.

1) The aforementioned A Frog and His Boy

2) Jurassic Bark ie: The episode of Futurama about Fry's dog



3) Luck of the Fryrish ie: The episode of Futurama about Fry's brother



4) Fried Green Tomatoes, the only confirmed 'chick flick' in my movie collection actually.



That isn't actually a scene that makes me cry (except maybe for the poor little red bug) but it's what popped up in my youtube search and it's awesome.

5) Amelie



This one actually feels like kind of a cheat because it never provokes sad tears, just joyous ones. But I wanted to round out the list so that it wasn't half Futurama episodes

6) Just remembered this one, the final episode of Blackadder book IV: Goodbyeee



This one just isn't fair. SPOILER ALERT! (if you're worried about spoilers for a show that's 20 years old...) The thing is at the end of every book the entire cast dies. And it's funny. It's always funny. But not this time. This time all of Blackadder's scheming has been to just get away from the war and keep himself alive. When they go over the top and the smoke fades away to a poppy field I defy you not to sob.

One more sort of entry, it did not make the official list but I think an honorable mention should go out to this specific scene from Ratatouille.



The clip is 4 minutes long but the relevant bit is in the first 57 seconds. It doesn't make the cut because it only makes me teary, not cry and also if I start counting the weepy moments from Pixar movies we'll be here all day.

New Beginning

So Intrepid Space Heroes is doing weird things. I decided that I didn't like the place where I had started the story in the one comic I actually posted last September. So since then I have nearly finished a new start page but halfway through coloring it I've changed my mind again.

Part of my problem is that I have a lot of characters with way a lot of backstory and I'm impatient to share it all. I had decided to pause the actual start and try and crank out a little self contained story about Terry on a dinosaur planet and I have spent the last couple months designing a queen of the Terror Birds.

Last week though I had a weird dream about being dropped in a giant marketplace/cityscape that was a man made island. All the floors where winding sloping grated pathways that spidered in and out of huge open domes. While dwelling on this dream at work it occurred to me that this would be the perfect setting for a bit of an origin story reminiscent of the opening scene in the first episode of Firefly. A little blurb from the department of backstory as it were.

If you want to do me a favor let me know what you'd rather see. Vote 1 for Terry and the Terror Birds, 2 for The As Yet Untitled Origin Story.

Raw Blog #1

This is the last time I will apologize for a large gap between posts. Sorry I am a bad blogger.

On to the meat of this post...


This is Bertie. He is a 2 lb miniature poodle puppy. No worries, Amelie is still kicking but I have wanted another dog for a loooong time. I was wait listed for this little guy for over a year. And now he is here.

And so begins our adventures with raw food. The same research that lead me to positive reinforcement training for The Poodle has also made me want to try a raw diet. I don't really want to give a whole run down as I am not an expert on this but for those not familiar with the term a raw diet is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of a kibble full of fillers and meat from unknown sources you feed your dog whole bones and meat and offal and depending on your stripes veggies (some raw feeders are adamant that vegetables are unnecessary, others say their dogs just like them and seem to seek them out).

The result is a much happier and healthier dog. Dogs on raw diets have brighter eyes and shinier coats and blindingly white teeth. Since I got Bertie I have been feeding him (and Amelie) a partial raw diet (I was buying a pre-made raw mix and feeding that primarily along with a high quality canned food and a high quality kibble). A couple days ago we had a play date with another poodle puppy his exact age and Bertie had easily three times as much energy. The other puppy kept winding down and taking nap breaks but Bertie was good to run around for the full three-ish hours (and after). So I was already feeling good about their food.

But I've been doing some more reading the past couple days and realized that they are missing out with the pre-ground food. They miss out on the teeth cleaning and the work for food aspect that I already know Amelie loves. So I decided to switch to the real thing.

Today was actually our second official day with a raw diet. Yesterday they had sardines at lunch and chicken feet for dinner. Today Bertie had (more of the same) chicken foot again and I gave Amelie a beef short rib. I wish I could have cut the thing in half because it was waaaay too big for her. She managed most of it but is now super full and since she's on the pudgy side I'm thinking tomorrow for dinner she's just gonna get the one last sardine. I may get a hack saw or something to chop these bones down in future.

Bertie did very well with the chicken foot today after I scored it down the middle. His little teeth were having trouble denting the hide. Amelie looked like a portrait of a saint in ecstasy. They spent the better part of an hour working on their food. After the chicken foot yesterday Amelie was so excited for dinner tonight. She didn't even know what I had planned but she was shaking from excitement. Even the greediest chow hound at work doesn't show that kind of enthusiasm for food.

This is still primarily an art blog (no really!) but I have decided to chronicle this experiment for posterity. Last November the vet told me that Amelie would need her teeth scaled (again) sometime in the next year. I have been dreading it because even though he told me it would only cost "a couple hundred dollars" I know that it frequently costs $600 and up and I just don't have that kind of money right now. I've been doing dental chews and trying and mostly failing to remember to brush her teeth and they aren't that bad. Some tartar around the gumline but it's not too bad. I am interested to see when/if the new food starts to make a difference.

Proof that I think too much...

I did some Superman doodles with my awesome new cheapass ballpoint pen and my fantabulous markers.



So, somehow despite the fact that it should be utterly ridiculous, this is a snazzy outfit. I didn't have quite the right shade of yellow but it works OK. His waxy tan is courtesy of Crayola and their classic "peach" that's as close as most marker sets come to a Caucasian skin tone.

Anyway, I just wonder how the hell this thing works.

Is it a onesy?

He's gotta stretch the neck and step into the thing? And then it sort of snaps taut when it gets into place. That would explain why it's always one piece hanging in the closet. Or is it...

Separates?

Hey, the man wears tight boots in all kinds of weather. Arctic chill, deep space. He probably needs some warm socks. His mother probably knit those for him. So don't knock the socks. So maybe it's four pieces which seems less silly than the onesy. Obviously the belt is magic and keeps all the pieces stuck together in combat.



The image of the Man of Steel putting on stockings was too powerful to resist. I like to think that inside the red panties is a hidden garter system. I call that circus stool the Super Poof. I think it demonstrates clearly why the yellow needs to be downplayed in the outfit. I love the drape of the cape in this one and his pushed out ass.

And now that these drawings are done I can stop thinking about this.

ETA: There is something delightful about drawing Superman's toes.