Klezmer and Cookies

A good way to spend a cozy Friday night after a long, tiring and damp week. Baking chocolate chip cookies (with a few butterscotch chips thrown in) and listening to some good Klezmer music. Mmmm.

They Might Be Podcasting

Okay yeah, that was the obvious title for this post. Whatever. Anyway, I haven't really gotten into the whole podcasting thing much, but I have been listening to the one from They Might Be Giants and it's been a lot of fun. Check it out. Plenty of it I've heard before, though some of it is new versions of old songs. But I really enjoy all the brand new songs they're sharing there. Miniature Sidewalk Whirlwind for starters was great, and It Never Fails, with that double-Flansburgh stuff going on, was a kick. In the latest one, I really like Diving Board, about the relationship between a swimming pool and its diving board. The made-up language lesson was pretty funny, too. Lots of good stuff.

Punxatawny Graham

I poked my nose outside my apartment this weekend, saw my shadow, and decided it was springtime. And you know what that means. Yep. Short hair again.

St. Patrick: Patron Saint of Decision Makers?

This is one of those very annoyingly scheduled days, or evenings at least, where there are too many good things to do. Being a third Friday, there's a Friday Night Waltz, for starters. Then because Roble dance studio was booked last week, Jammix was moved to tonight also. Plus, it's Saint Patrick's day so of course there needs to be some music and partying for that. After a bit of debate, my plan is to make do with two of my top three. I'll go to Patrick's (appropriately enough) to play some tunes for a while after work, then leave at 9 or so for Jammix. FNW isn't going to make the cut, I'm afraid. Of course, I'm not entirely sure how Jammix will go for me, either. I woke up yesterday with an unhappy knee from too many shorty georges at Steppin' Out the night before. (St. George the Short: patron saint of knee injuries?) It's a bit better today, though, so hopefully it will be alright for some dancing tonight. But if we do the Jitterbug Stroll, I'm going to fake the shorty georges.

The Living Room Wall, Stage II

Since my last post on the subject, I've made about 60 of the little tiles (shown here) to go into the mosaic on my wall. I figured that was about enough to start actually putting them up, so I did. It was just about enough to sketch out the main arcs of the pattern, so there's lots of space still to fill in. I've only put green tiles up so far. I've got a few blue ones as well, but I'm undecided about how those will fit in. Also, the curve of the smallest arc probably needs adjusting. But anyway, stuff is up and it's looking good so far.

Here leezard, leezard, leezard....

Here's a funny drawing of mine I found, from back in high school. Lacey and I were working at Moss Landing Marine Labs at the time, on a big project involving legless lizards. One of the ladies at the lab had a pet chihuahua named (I think) Sergio, who was sort of a little mascot for us. We wanted to train him to be a lizard hound and help us track and catch the little critters, but no luck. I did, however, have fun drawing him as such. The lizards weren't really quite that big, but some of them could probably still have put up a good fight against little Sergio.

The Living Room Wall

When I posted those last pictures of my apartment, I noted that the living room wall was likely to be turned into an art project of some sort. Well, here's the plan for it. It's sort of a multi-level thing, so I'll try to describe it bottom-up.

Start with many (dozens of) small pictures, about 2x2 inches square. Each picture can be anything at all: probably lots of drawings, also quotes or other bits of text, printed-out photos or other images, etc. Then put each picture on a slightly larger (3x3) square of colored paper for a frame. I'm going to go for mostly a medium-dark green, with some occasional dark blues thrown in. Maybe other colors later. Then take all of those and put them up making large patterns across the whole wall. The individual tiles will look like this. The overall pattern I'm thinking of will start out something like this and expand.

The idea is that the wall as a whole will have the appearance of a large tapestry or mural or something, and everything will be tied together by the common colors on the paper backing. But when you zoom in closer, there are many many more fascinating little details. Plus, it can be an ongoing project, so it can just grow organically for as long as I want to keep it up.

"But why," I hear you ask, "should you have all the fun, Graham?" Excellent question. And in fact, if any of you are feeling artsy and want to play along at home, I will happily take contributions. Just create something 2x2 inches square (3x3 if you really must have more space, but I'm trying to keep it small), and send it to me. I'll put it on the colored paper to match everything else and find it a place on the wall. As for what to put on it, just be creative. If you think there's a remote possibility that I'll like it or find it interesting, then it's fair game.

So that's the plan. I'll post more pictures as it goes along.