50 Reasons To Stop Sketching At Conventions, by Stuart Immonen

Go read this comic. It's for free, see? It's for free!

Also

My brother just came in to remind me to check the cat's email.
So i did.
It's amazing how many people want to loan money to a small orange cat.

map update

Ok, there's only one new country since the last time i did this, but it's still a small thing to be proud about. And furthermore - evaristo's moving east! So many great places to explore in this expanded european onion(sic)!

create your personalized map of europe
or write about it on the open travel guide

(20 minutes later Post Scriptum: This is a map of places i've visited. As in: taken a bus, plane, train or trycicle to. It is Not in any way an Olmo Map. Why does everybody always think this?) (On the other hand, maybe i ought to feel flattered about this)

Had i already linked to this? Don't think so.

Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein explores the sources of some of the artist's most famous works: Romance and adventure genre comics from the fifties and early sixties. Great Silver Age era comic artists Such as Kirby, Heck, Romita Sr. and Ditko are easily recognizeable.

And just to make this post look less serious, i would like to share with you that i'm blogging from my bed.

More Baseman

Play with Gary Baseman and Tim Biskup's interchangeable postcards at Tin Man Alley.
Yes, we're still going through our plastic art toy trip here at WGD Central.

1.

So today i felt like linking to some things that i consider inspirational. I'm doing this in a hurry, so i might be adding some nice images later. Meanwhile, in inverse order(whatever that may mean), here are three things that were on my mind today.

The first: Rykodisc records will be publishing Cristina Donà's first english-speaking album on the 13th of september. Her music is something to keep an eye on, and i truly, sincerely wish her success. The right kind of success.
The album, simply titled Cristina Donà, will be published in 33 countries. Italy included.

Go check out the new english-speaking section of her site, still a work in progress but extremely worthwhile nonetheless.

2.

Roberto Matta permanent exhibit at Galeria De Artes Graficas VALA.
Even at work, people have started teasing me about when i'll finish my university thesis on this artist. Ha ha fucking ha.

3.

Gary Baseman interviewed at Scene360. Designer, toymaker or artist? The answer lies in there somewhere. Somehow.
KidRobot Toys offers an assortment of Bateman's works for sale. Go and enjoy their junk.

(Interview link via GmtPlus9.)

burek

Back from croatia. Had a really, really, really swell time. Problem is, now i don't know how to start the day without my morning kick of burek.
Oh well, at least i have emotion eric to cheer me up.

ok

So i'm leaving for Croatia early tomorrow morning. Pelo is already keeping a place for me, or at least that's what we all hope. He never specified it would be a place we would all fit in, though.
The tent eventually decided not to be an issue, as about half of the people who'd been counted in by both interested parties eventually didn't make it, so as usual things just fixed themselves. Thanks anyway to Igor for his kind and amazingly swift offer of help, i was actually hoping to use your tent: the radioactivity would have been the talk of the town. Come in dear, the fallout is lovely.
I still haven't found my rucksack and am leaving in eight hours, but don't worry, what's most important is that i know where my towel is. Always.

I'll be back here on saturday with more stories, running men, cows, cats, bears, music, general wierdness and asking for water before going to bed. And promising updates on stuff i never get around to write about.

And when i get back my summer will be over.

Cheers.

Man Running

Runner, an animation by Makoto Nakamura.

We treat you like cattle

One thing i'll remember fondly from my trip to prague earlier this summer is the amount of decorated cows available on the streets. Actually, of all the pictures i took there, i think the only good one is the one that portrays two such specimens. Nothing surprising, my photographic skills are such that out of 36 pictures, only one or two are usually passable for human inspection.
Anyway, this morning i found the official prague cowparade website.
So go there and have a cow, man!

(damn, now i'm feeling nostalgic for prague...)

by the way

The webmaster will be away camping in Croatia with some irregular associates this week. If he manages to find a tent within the next couple of days, that is.

Um, anybody got a tent i can borrow?

some nice music

OrchestraSpaziale plays zappa, live at radio3, and you can listen to it here.
Also from the same site, a 1996 eelst live gig.
(Tnx to Gnapppo)

lifelong doubts

I'm watching The Cure's video for Close To Me.
I've always wondered how they managed to fit the cameramen into that little closet.

FYI

Bad Scrabble (once again via Killuglyradio), brings to mind a couple of old scrabble anecdotes. For one, the time when a still short-haired and bespectacled evaristo-to-be played scrabble with some old glasgow chums and was handed the perfect tiles for spelling "YAZOO" or "WAZOO". I eventually chose the former, since due to some of my earlier behaviour we had to insert the "no zappa titles" rule. Of course, after fifteen minutes of intense discussion, the others were forced to implement the "no obscure record label names" rule, too. Pity, any of those would've gotten me a truckload of points.
The other equally anticlimactic story happened less than a year ago, when we had a game of All-Languages-Accepted Mutual-Trust-Based Extreme Scrabble. If memory serves well, participants were a hungarian, an israeli, a latin american and myself (representing any other repressed minorities). Quite surprisingly, the game was not won by the Hungarian, helped by the mixed blessing of one of the most complicated languages in the world.
It was won by a passing italian.
Go figure.

And yes, posts have been scarce around here because we've gone from "oh my god, so much has been going on and i just haven't had the time to post about it on the blog" to "things around here are SO boring and there is absolutely nothing to be posted about". Either way, you -the reader- lose.

Oh, and i've been trying to implement an rss feed on this blog. Theorically it would only take a single click in my user settings. Instead i've had to bang my head against the keyboard for several hours, still to very little avail. If i ever actually manage to get something done with this, i'll let you know. But you'll probably have been distracted by your household piglets suddenly sprouting wings and fluttering around your back garden by then.

Don't say i didn't warn you...

Here and Here is where you can find just the right critter hats for the next Dress-Up-Like-Robin-Day! As you all should know by now, Dress-Up-Like-Robin-Day is that annual festivity which, uh, only ever happened once (a couple of months ago) and only involved two of my closest friends. For a couple of hours. But anyway! The next one will be even better! So get your critter hats today! Or knit your own ones, which would make you even cooler.
As cool as a mentally deranged person can possibly be considered, that is.
Oh, and be sure to take more than a passing look around meomi.com, as it's one of my favourite new-design sites.

Updates around here have been slow as of recently, mainly because i was dsl-connectionless and didn't want to post from the college connection, which is just not safe. So as was inevitably going to happen, these days my cat was blogging more often than i was.

Will update readers on a few important goings-on, regarding employment and institutionally recognized felinity. And stuff.
More to come.

Eventually.

There's something for everyone

Over at this site you may enjoy the one and only Napoleon Murphy Brock performing a selection of Zappa classics at this year's Arezzo Wave Festival, while some italians throw muffins at the audience. Said muffins come from a plastic bag on which the Agip Store insignia is well visible, thus making me an even prouder customer and occasional shoplifter of such an illustrious enterprise.
Shortly thereafter, Napoleon stops singing, picks up his towel and walks away. Now there's one hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is.

You wait, time passes.

And finally, Fernanda Porto comes on to sing her enchanting new bossa nova. Or at least i suppose she does, i haven't watched that part yet.
(link via KillUglyRadio)

Non-misplaced Siblings

Washing the plates, my brother calls.
Him: "hey, is it raining there yet?"
Me: "no, it's, uh, still kind of warm here."
Him: "oh cool, 'cause i can see some big black clouds gathering over duino from where i'm standing(trieste castle), looks like it's gonna pour down any minute now."
Me: "oh, ok, i'll take the washing in. Anything else?"
Him: "Yeah, water the plants."
Me: "Cool."

End of conversation.

Childhood.

Just finished watching an mtv special on Bob Marley. Wasn't too bad, for mtv standards. There were, however, many videos i had never seen before. It seemed to me that Robert Nesta M. often made children be the stars of his videos, quite appropriate for the message of hope he was spreading around. Both things(small children and hope) would get you arrested these days. But anyway, what gave me mixed feelings was seeing the videos and thinking to myself that these 1978/1981 children were dressed like my parents used to dress me up at the time. (i have pictures to prove it, but they will never, ever appear online. This blog itself is enough humiliation, thank you.)
What followed was a progressive mix of:
-nostalgia
-pride(for once looking like something that would appear in a bob marley video, not trendy perhaps but cool nonetheless)
-"oh my god, am i really that old?"

But still, i would love to get that kind of clothes back. Flannel pants. Jeans jackets with brown patches on the elbows. Colorful pullovers. Cool. As if i didn't look silly enough the way i usually dress, but after all, silly is in the eye of the beholder.

Another thing, speaking of childhood, that induced me into reflection today was this nursery rhyme:

Monday's Child is fair of face,
Tuesday's Child is full of grace,
Wednesday's Child is full of woe,
Thursday's Child has far to go,
Friday's Child is loving and giving,
Saturday's Child works hard for a living,
But the Child that is born on the Sabbath Day,
Is witty and wise and good and gay!

I was born on a thursday. The reason this poem turned up on a yahoo group i subscribe to was in reference to this song whose lyrics i just need to post here and now. Had been a while since i last posted lyrics, so don't complain.

Some Birds Blue (Thursday's Child)

Words&Music: Sananda Maitreya

• Thursday's child has far to go •
• But there are things he needs to know •
• Thursday's child is wondering why •
• His apple has fallen from your eye •
• Why are some birds blue? •
• What is the taste of rain? •
• Why are some birds blue? •
• And why am I not with you? •
• Thursday's child has love to give •
• From a heart that's positive •
• Thursday's child was born to sing •
• Into your ear the sweetest things •
• Why are some birds blue? •
• What is the taste of rain? •
• Why are some birds blue? •
• And why am I not with you? •
• Dreamers begin by opening their mind •
• And throwing out the doubt they find •
• Happiness is the freedom to be •
• Within your sensuality •
• Thursday's child has far to go •
• And he still loves you so •
• Thursday's child has only you •
• And questionmarks to answer to •
• Why are some birds blue? •
• What is the taste of rain? •
• Why are some birds blue? •
• And why am I not with you? •

The complete song can be listened to at this link. Listen to the whole album, while you're at it. It's not at all bad. Ok, i'm kind of biased considering the guy's one of my childhood heroes. So whatever.

(sorry for being so *deep* today. My DSL connection had been down for 24 hours, causing me to devote my attentions elsewhere and thus come up with all these considerations.Tomorrow onwards, back to the usual stuff. Y'know, links, comics, useless musical trivia, boredom, etc.)

See? this is the kind of place i was supposed to come from

Two strange animals, described as small dinosaurs with a shape vaguely resembling that of a kangaroo, were sighted by the occupants of an all-terrain vehicle traveling from Iquique to our town, on thursday night. (Spanish required)

So this is the place i was originally supposed to come from if all kinds of shit (i.e. the cold war, just to name one generic reason) hadn't happened.

Arica: Important drug-trafficking center, alcoholic's paradise, perfect breeding climate or surviving dinosaur haven? None of the above would surprise me. After all, my birthplace is also a reknowned surviving dinosaur haven, so i'm already used to that.

Nixon clips

Defending himself against the Watergate charges, Nixon declares, "I'm not a crook" (538K sound .avi)
...And other timeless classics.