Ah, History

Someone, who shall continue to remain unnamed (but of whose blog we shall post a complete screenshot), has made a mild spelling error.
And just when I called him a complete fag.
He couldn't wait till Sunday or ANYTHING! Check out what he called his archive.

Oofla Foof

I would really like to say that I'm made terrific progress with my painting. The truth is, I haven't. I haven't been making progress in much of anything. Besides finding brilliant videos like this one.

Now that we've gotten that smexy little piece out of our way, we can connect with the real issues in life, like, of what are we composed? Did man really land on the moon? And, who is going to make me a cuppa?
The answer to all these things is, for any good narcissist, ME.
Oh. Alan Rickman plays the cello. One of many more things for me to love about the man who is the 'greasy git.' What I wouldn't do for him to snarl at me.
I would also like very much to post some of my poetry, but I've not written any lately. So here you are. I'm going to once again foist upon you someone else's poetry!
I don't know how familiar you are with Rumi, but he was a Persian mystic who wrote a ton of trippy poetry, much of it based on concepts of unity and love.
This is one of his more user-friendly pieces, called 'The Unseen Power.' Sigh. I love nature pieces.

We are the flute, our music is all Thine;
We are the mountains echoing only Thee;
And movest to defeat or victory;
Lions emblazoned high on flags unfurled-
The wind invisible sweeps us through the world.

Weasley's Wizard Wheezes

Two words.
Redheaded.
Twins.
James and Oliver Phelps are hot.
And that's all I have to say about that.

MSNBC

Looks like elephants and southern men aren't so different after all.

I Will Extol the Magnificence of Thy Raisins

All right, we all know it. I am an admitted gourmand. And if I don't follow Epicurean philosophy quite well, I am at least hedonistic in the food sense. Lucullus dines with Lucullus and all that. I have a love affair with food.
This morning, I'm feeling particularly enamoured of porridge. Yes, porridge. One of the most underrated comfort foods of all time. The year is drawing to a close, and it's getting a bit nippy. Of course, with my island-girl blood, anything below seventy is frigid and my teeth with start chattering, but when you drag yourself out of bed at seven in the morning to find wisps of smoke rising from a pot of gorgeous warm porridge with raisins and butter and milk and nutmeg and honey...there is nothing greater. Nothing at all, I say.
Well, maybe this bagel I made for myself yesterday. It was incredible. Toasted, with melted butter and basil and garlic and parmesan. Yes, it was brilliant.
Osch. Last night we had fettucine in a five cheese sauce (bergkase, emmentaler, parmesan, mozzarella, and some other cheese which I forget), with white wine and fresh basil. I passed out several times during the meal, mainly because it was paired with fat salmon steaks marinated in white pinot, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. I was always taught that less is more with fatty fish, but this was only marinated for three hours or so, and didn't at all become acidic. My kitchen (lab) partner and I reduced the marinade afterward for a gravy, seared the fish in olive oil and fried it in butter, and did a final glaze of lime juice just before it came off the pan.
Sigh.
All I really want for lunch is a bowl of hot chicken soup with rice.
God, it's freezing.
In other news, Devon Aoki is hawt. Yes, she's skinny, but she has the strangest features. And we all know I love that.
Ah...I've been wanting to post this for a while. About a month ago, I remembered the poem itself, and it was driving me up the wall because I couldn't remember the opening lines. All I could remember were the closing lines, but here it is. William Cullen Bryant's 'Mutation.'
HEY talk of short-lived pleasure--be it so--
Pain dies as quickly: stem, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease.
Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes--did it keep
A stable changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

A lot of his work was a bit stodgy, but I have to admit that I love this piece, and 'The Arctic Lover.' He still looked like a bloody Quaker.
Cheers ma darlings

Sexy, thy name is...hot chick on the guitar

Don't even try to pretend this doesn't turn you on.

Lavertezzo 1

Life is no burden, and Life is no blessing this time around.
Ominous words, those, and regrettably enough, accurate. If not to you, or to me, to someone. Poor swot.
Well, I'm going to go ahead and post the first WIP of my painting, which will be titled *deep breath* 'The Bridge of Lavertezzo over the River Verzasca.'
All right, here goes. The sketch was done with a .9 mm mechanical pencil over about five minutes, from a couple of different reference shots. I'm still kicking myself over not bringing a camera to Ticino when I went, but PTL, these things will happen. I'm sure I'll manage to be back there at some point.
*Clears throat*
Ahem!
The sky was done mainly with a knife-mixed concoction of titanium white and flake white, manganese blue, and cadmium yellow deep. You can see the streaky yellow bits in the sky. I'm going to go for a Delacroix feel with this baby. Those of you who've seen 'The Sea from Dieppe' will know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't, go look at it. I love that painting. The mountains were gently patted in with a flat number 12 natural bristle, and they involve olive green, sap green, a whole lotta yellow ochre, and a smadge of cadmium red deep.
The bridge is mainly unbleached titanium (something I'm sure is going to come in handy in this little venture, and the brush on the left side is olive green, yellow ochre, the merest hint of mars violet, and burnt umber. I'm going to go ahead and postulate that I'm going to use very little to no actual black in this painting, substituting Van Dyck brown instead (which is something I do pretty often).
Insofar as the composition goes, I'm taking reference from three photographs of this area, mostly for the rock formations, but I'm also drawing from memory. I'm going to go ahead and ignore the fact that this is a fairly active tourist spot, and paint it as though there were no such thing as electricity lines or backpackers.
I don't think you can really see the sketch, but if you can, you'll probably be about as pleased with the composition as I am.
Uh...Yes. I'm aware that it doesn't look like much yet, but those of you who've bollocksed about with oil will probably detect my next moves. Loving you, and Jesus!

Saboteur

If you know me, you've probably been exposed to this little wanker. But click anyhow. You love it.

And in other news, Jack White's mugshot is nearly as smexy as Mel Gibson's. Observe.

Wet

Wet canvas, that is. LOOK HERE for the kind of things that make me squee.
Yes. I am a confirmed art nerd.
I know that alizarin crimson will go cool if mixed with titanium white, but cadmium red light will not. Cadmium red deep, however, will, particularly if mixed with zinc white. And that Indian red was originally derived from the urine of Indian water buffalos fed only on mango leaves.
Ain't that a kick in the head?
Erm...I'm quite tired, and I wanted to share my joy with you.
I am going to buy a pair of fabulous boots.
They will make me happy.
Even though Elton John is not my Grandmother.
I have a better Grandmother, and she makes fabulous barley soup.
I will, for those curious, be posting WIPs of my painting for the benefit of one beautiful Brit Canadian, with brief blurbs detailing the process, more for my own benefit than anyone else's. So if you're the person this painting is going to, don't look, because until the last couple layers, it's going to look like rubbish.
Erm...yes. I am sleepy. I've given a vain attempt to write more poetry lately, but you know how that goes. Whenever you try, it turns around and gives you a solid kick in the groin.
And with that thought, and the knowledge that no, I will not foist any lame midnight extempore poetry on you, I turn in.

Wooster! Revisited

For those of you who have not yet discovered the pile of AWESOME that is the Wooster Collective, check out THIS LINK.
For those of you who have, check it out again. I guarantee that you will, at the least, crack an amused grin at some of the art on there, and at best, be offended by some of the graffiti.
I was digging round in an old notebook today, in this case, a pocket-sized graph-paper Moleskine, and, amongst the pieces of tawdry vers-libre and syrupy prose, I found this little gem.

Sonnet III
The blighted moon weaves, all a-tremble
With the warning of a wave,
Rise to sing for nuptial revels--
You have said I am your bane.
I have determined now, as then,
To love you less and trust you more
Until unfortunate events
Return me to your western shore.
Will you be loved, betrayed, or both
Upon my wisdom-wrought beachtide?
I pause now, ere I plight my troth
Unto your soporific pride.
Of your heart I am aware,
You could have me if you dared.
(finis)

I wrote that baby back in late September of last year, just before I vacated the Lone Star State. Dre, don't resent me cause I held back. So far as fixed verse goes, it's not bad, but it doesn't hold any of the strong sound and imagery that I usually utilise.
In other news, I have a propensity for both cutting and burning myself accidentally. Whenever I yelp in the kitchen, I swear, even Sinead is laughing at me, and she is the sweetest kitty of everyone's kitties.
Back to writing...I started putting 'Mockingbird' into fixed form, but I can't seem to grab hold of what I was feeling back then. I remember writing it, yes, walking down to the park at the end of the cul-de-sac with my MP3 player blasting 'Universally Speaking' into my ears, contemplating taking a walk down to the dunes beyond the forest and back, but for the life of me, I don't know what the hell I was feeling.
Maybe because I don't do a whole lot of feeling.
And maybe because I just don't care to rehash the little that I do.
Oh...here's another link for you.
The immortal Edward Gorey, and the Gashlycrumb Tinies.
Till next time, my lovelies.

Shame on you, Laurie King!

On one of my erstwhile blogs, I said something about picking up a modern book in which Sherlock Holmes (who outpaced both Captain von Trapp and Robin Hood as a childhood crush) is married to some little blonde snit who apparently possesses the same powers of observation and deduction as he does. I was enraged, promptly wrote the book off as a piece of literary whorishness, and went along my merry way, bought an edition of Descartes, and was done with it.
Recently, during a little coffee break (free day) I happened upon a book by the same author, earlier in the series, before Mary Russell (read: blonde snit) was busily engaged in snogging Holmes, and was merely testing his nerve by dressing like a gipsy and browbeating him into teaching her about bees and cigarette ashes. I amusedly began to peruse, believing I should soon be throwing it down in disgust, but all I can say is, shame on you, Laurie King (the author of said book)!
I liked the style, the pace, and, worst of all, I liked the blonde snit who had so callously usurped my place as the Beekeeper's Apprentice (the first novel in the series). She's an overtall, slightly ungainly woman who is almost always right, and knows it. Don't ask me why, but she was bizarrely charming as a character. Even though Holmes likes her better than me. (pouts).
I am by no means endorsing these books, though, in my spare hour of browsing at the bookshop, I did manage to get through half of the first volume, and was entertained. I'm simply saying not to discount something because of its appearance.
Even if you're almost always right.
~
On another note, I am working on a new painting, as of last night. A semi-commission, this time. My darling Swiss will no doubt be delighted at the subject. It is none other than the old Roman bridge at Lavertezzo. I was there on a road trip earlier this year, and those who went with me can attest to my adoration of the Ticinoise (Ticinese?) countryside. Probably the most beautiful place I've ever been. I wrote a poem about it and everything.
*Big Smile*
Anyhow...yes...we'll see how it turns out. If you're lucky, I'll post WIP's.
Loving you, and Jesus!
(and Sherlock Holmes)

Oh, Daddy!

Yes. I have one living in my room.
A daddy long legs, that is!
*cue drum roll*
He's cute, and only has seven legs. He moved in while I was at the XD, and whenever I look round, he's in the corner I look. I don't know how he gets round so quickly, being an invalid and all. He's very cute. I didn't think I was ready to love again after Fred, but the little minger's wormed his way into my heart. I think I shall name him Percival.
Sir Percival Gainsley.
Yeah.
I would also like to apologize for the poetry I wrote the other day. It was inexcusable. Here is something a little fresher, older, and sexier. Something bright and happy to remember those days, sitting outside the duplex, with a cup of hot peach tea, watching the sun go down on a new home.

Peach Tea
Opposing me, enclosing me.
If I work, I will not eat.
Doubly honest self-esteem,
Strangling suffrage is a dream.

Delight by charted sights,
Crackling sparks lie maimed at night.
Kow-towing to a tainted line.
Health in silence, a tongueless mime.

Fruit burned in second storm's wake.
Mind churned, thicker thoughts to make.
Bubbling skin on funeral pyre.
Pennies ransom Charon's ire.

Quadruple clean-cut channels
Win all defensive battles.
Oppose every single drop.
Falling upward never stops.
(finis)

Crows with Measles Committing Suicide

Funny, when I was twelve, I would have thought that was stunning imagery. Now it's just...gigglicious.
Erm...here. This is some really rubbish work, but you might as well see it.

The winter wind is closing fast,
Tracing across my hollow palm.
I drink up the last sun-rays,
Vitamins drench my shining hair.

Like an elliptical dish, the crowing child
Would have eaten your codfish heart.
But you fed it to the crocodiles
Deemed more worthy of your love

Ugh...yes, that is really rubbish. I'm going to be ashamed of it for some time. Erm...something else...aha!
Here's the long-awaited gesture, for those of you I haven't shown it to yet. Reference from Mehmet Turgut's photograph 'Rebel 7.' The painting is called 'The Epiphany of Auntie Sunshine.'
No, actually...it's called 'Prophecy.'

Craig's so sensitive! He has a tattoo!

Now, I hate to do this to you guys again...that is, post another video clip, but this one is great. Many thanks to Betts, who introduced me to this brilliant comedian.

Now that that's through with, however, I think I shall have to tell you that I'm extraordinarily chuffed. Yes, yes, I am. I finished a painting. Or, rather, abandoned it, as da Vinci would have it. Yes, I have a photograph of it, and here it is!
Just kidding. I haven't got one, yet, but it is coming.
Soon.
I've been toying with the idea of doing a miniature. Yes, a miniature. I went out and bought some itty canvases the other day (there was a sale...30% off all canvases, joygasm), and started on the larger one, but the small one...well, it's only about 12x10 cm, so I can just beautifully work on a miniature. What I'd really like to do is a round vignette miniature, but I haven't been able to find miniature-sized round canvas and there's no way I'm going to stretch my own now that I've run out of gesso. Let the corporations do it for me!
Now, I know none of you know what I'm talking about, but I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you how much I love grumtine. Not the thin, clear stuff. I love the dark bluey green stuff that takes an age, an age, and half an age to dry, and smells like orange rinds and makes your room smell clean even when it's not.
Yes, my room looks like a tornado went through it, but, believe it or not, I'm actually making a conscious effort to make it presentable. Despite the fact that my ever increasing stash of art nonsense is steadily encroaching on my living space, it's all right! I won't panic! Because we all know that my easel shrinks down to the size of a teaspoon, canvases can be sold to other aspiring artists at cost price, and brushes are easy to transport.
I'd encourage anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about at the moment to go away, if you haven't already, because I'm about to tell you about my new brush.
It's black Fitch sable, a #4 filbert, with a handle that is balanced in the smexiest possible way, a ferrule that's not going to shed though it walks through the valley of the shadow of death, and the only regret I have is that I'm not allowed to marry an inanimate object.
This is the sexiest brush. It's not that I don't appreciate the beauty of natural bristle. I've had a set of natural bristle brushes since I first started oil painting. I've dragged them across three continents and though three have been lost along the wayside because they were stuck together with old oil paint, I'm still terribly attached to them.
I especially love the daddy, the big old #12 that scrumbles and covers so nicely, even if it is stained with phthalo blue at the tips and you can barely see that the handle is made of wood. These are the kind of brushes that don't give in.
But I'm still in love with my new filbert.
My God, I'm a nerd.

Sunnyland Sim and Willie Dixon

See y'all after the weekend rush.

Totally Underground

To Whom it May Concern

I wrote this piece a while ago. All right, a long while ago. Over a year ago. And no one's responded to it on the WF (that means you, Dre...and you've been encouraging me to write more fixed verse). So, being the tawdrily narcissistic being I am, you will be subjected to it here! Voila!

Jester's apprentice, violet veined,
I die to dance upon your stage.
Recall that I, the human stain,
A conquering worm, infirm with age,
Has wished for naught but birth-release--
A way to bring my brain decease.

Yet you insist, as times before,
That I pause my pagan rites
To seek another dancing floor;
An alternate to fuel my nights.
So I sit and weep backstage
As life winds me in its rage.

I know my time has come and gone,
I was the brightest of the stars,
Winked but once, and scarcely shone,
And proudly now, I bare my scars.
I am a soldier, fire-ant queen.
I am an altar, half obscene.

Take heart with me, befuddled lordling,
See the cherry-pits of doom.
Taste the ichor of my scorning,
Aim your bullets for the moon.
When the artichoke abstains,
Your gradient grace will be to blame.

Skip stones on the freckled lake,
Pay in dimples for my trial,
In my hairline fracture, bake,
Drain with me this virulent vial.
Sing with me, o fevered choir--
Chorus spinning on a wire.

Let us live our fire out,
Ill-mannered not to yield the ghost.
Let us whisper, ere the shout
Of sorcerers has summoned hosts.
Enspectred cobwebs catching time,
Let us live our welcome dry.
(finis)
Sunday, 6 August, 2006, 3:38 pm


Is it too cliché? Is that it? Is it too much like my older work? Does it not display enough development as a writer?
In other news, I would like to announce, for the second post in a row, my complete adoration for a thespian. Yes, yes...blah, blah. This time it's John Cleese. Sometimes I just want to take Basil Fawlty and kiss his nose, hand him some tea and crumpets (real ones) and tell him it's all going to be all right.
Sorry, back to poetry. I've been reading over my old poetry, and found that at some point during my late fifteenth, early sixteenth year, I made a switch from lofty fixed verse to some very abstract concepts indeed. I stopped writing poetry based on Aristotle and started writing based on myself.
Yes, my work has suffered.
And furthermore, I've only ever written two or three narrative poems. One was about Icarus and what he found when he got to Hades, another about a nightmare I had, and the other...well...judge for yourself.
The Words*
I dreamt that my words were torn--
Halting, falling from my mouth;
It was almost as though they were sliced away
As they came falling--
My name they were
Calling, as they trickled
To their doom.

I found them in a leather-bound book
And the pages were worn, and water-stained
But the pen-markings hadn’t gone anywhere
They lay suspended half-way in the air.

Like phantom figures in an old ballet
That nobody’s seen, but everyone knows
And then there was nothing, I still couldn’t speak
Because the words were light-fast,
They wouldn’t leave the pages
Though I jolted and tossed, and licked them off the pages.

I rushed into the street, and machines swerved around me
Avoiding the inevitable impact of metal,
But I couldn’t scream, my words were worthless
Scrawled out in silence, too small to see.

Well, I spoke to the sun in its own peculiar language—
I’d learnt it from someone born in a volcano,
It did not require words that were voiced with the
Mouth and the throat, and the tongue, only the soul
Played an essential tune to communing with the singular
Beaming, life-giving, conflagrating sun.

It was nearly a fight to force out my thoughts
From my soul, I had never done this before
Though I knew how to do it—one must only be honest
With the sun, because it knew everything already.
I said,
“Would you please give me back my words,
Or at least could you tell me
Where have they gone? I don’t know, I have looked.”

And the sun said, “You’ve found them already—
They’re in that book that’s right in your hands.”

So I looked at the first page,
And it said a line of Shakespeare,
A pretty proverb from the Phoenix and the Turtle,
A very old poem that nobody knows anymore.

My mouth, it opened, and I wrapped my tongue around
Every letter, but I couldn’t quite make any sense.
The sounds I emitted were all very rusted,
Like doors that haven’t been opened in years.

But I had just been speaking the day before yesterday,
And yesterday there wasn’t anything to say,
So I hadn’t spoken a single word.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t say anything.
Then I thought,
‘Well, this is pretty absurd. I’d better go find out
All about this book.”

So I picked myself up, and walked off into the sunset,
As all good adventurers do.
(finis)

And I will leave you with a picture.
Courtesy of a smexy musician.

Ken from Kent

How do I love him? Let me count the ways...
Oh...wait, wrong poet.
Shall I compare him to a summer's day?
He is more lovely and more temperate.
Blah, blah, blah.
I'm speaking, of course, about my favourite Kentish thespian, Kenneth Branagh. Even his ex-wife still adores him.
And now, after all his fantastic work, on stage, on film, behind the camera...he's directing a version of Die Zauberflöte. For all you operatically impaired loved ones out there, that's The Magic Flute, penned by Mozart some two, three hundred years ago. And now, it comes to you on film! The magic of Papageno and Prince Tamino, the mysterious Priest Sarastro, and, of course, the evil Queen of the Night. Apparently it's set in WWI rather than in Egypt, where the opera was originally meant to be located. I can't wait. I wanna be friends with it.
*wags tail*
Here. Have some Kenneth luuurve




















Great. Now I want to go watch Much Ado About Nothing.

A Masterpiece of DNA

So get this...I'm on YIM and my cousin Christella pops up. I haven't talked to her in yonks, cause she happens to live in the PI, and I'm not exactly close to my rellies of the maternal persuasion, and she offers me to view her webcam. I'm not gonna say no, and voila! She sitting there with this adorable little three, four year old boy on her lap and it turns out, he's my cousin, too.
Oh, and Chris is really pretty, too. Last time I saw her, she was a chubby little eleven year old and I was a gangly ten year old and we...made fires in the back yard.
Yeah.
Wow...that was a long time ago. So, yeah, I have a new cousin I didn't know about, and...erm...man, I miss calamansi juice. Or however you spell it.
Again, got into contact with the friendly, neighbourhood hole-in-the-wall art joint and bought myself a new tube of Payne's grey. It'll come in handy with this new gesture I swear to Gawd I'll finish.
But back to my maternal family...I'm just realising that they're a cool bunch, particularly the younger ones. My uncle Michael is a tattoo artist, Christella is looking to join a band, my late grandfather was a martial arts master, my mother was a sprinter...we Destuas are freakin hardcore, y'all.
And what's more, my mum's maiden name...yeah...it's that close to my dad's. How's that for serendipity?