Archive for February, 2008

Stop and Smell the Daisies

February 28th, 2008

A combination of busyness and lack of fresh inspiration is preventing me from posting anything here. Sorry. I will be back on Sunday, but in the meantime enjoy this shot of the lovely African daisies growing in our back yard and alley:

Weekly Mishmash: February 17-23

February 24th, 2008

Starting today, I’m going to do a little roundup of the movies, books, music and whatever else I’ve digested over the previous week. Here we go!
The African Queen (1951) Bogie and Kate, leeches and tsetse flies. This is one of those rare classic movies that I’d never seen before due to the fact that it’s […]

More Bunnies

February 22nd, 2008

Posted another installment of Two Bunnies and a Duck today. This new one was done in ink. The lines are darker, making the words easier to read — but I don’t like drawing in ink as much, and the results came out wobbly looking. Back to pencil for the next one. I have several weeks’ […]

Wednesday Photo Spectacular!

February 20th, 2008

It’s becoming apparent that this weblog has been suffering a bit of neglect lately, but hopefully I can put a Band Aid (similar to the one I got today for a tetanus shot) on that with these marvy photo-based links:

Most Important: Newsweek’s slide show Losing Our Lakes demonstrates how global warming is contributing to lowering […]

New Mix: The Mr. Blackwell Show

February 15th, 2008

Nowadays he might be dimly known for his bitchy “Worst Dressed” lists, but back in the ’60s Richard Blackwell had his own fashion line for plus-sized women and society matrons desiring a Beverly Hills sophisticated-yet-casual look. The gowns (and, yes, it was mostly gowns) he created had this luxe “swanky chic” thing going on — […]

Movie Poster Artist Extraordinaire

February 13th, 2008

After dealing with little to nothing on the web about the great ’70s/’80s illustrator Richard Amsel, it’s a pleasure to see Adam McDaniel’s wonderful tribute to the artist. I’ve written in awe about Amsel before; he was a fantastic talent, but also something of an enigma. I wonder what would’ve been of his career had […]

The Granny Awards

February 11th, 2008

Out of curiosity (okay, I wanted to see if Burt Bacharach and Doris Day might appear to pick up their Lifetime Achievement awards), I tuned into the Grammy Awards last night. Boy, what a strange show. Just hand me some Geritol ’cause I feel so elderly now! It’s bad enough that I’ve never heard of […]

Reams of the Unreal

February 10th, 2008

Yesterday, Christopher and I took our yearly little trek to the VNSA book sale which takes place every February. This is one of the biggest used book sales in the country — and luckily it’s located just a short walk from our house. The sale is an amazing experience, with books (and book lovers) of […]

Two Bunnies and a Duck

February 8th, 2008

The s.o. has been hounding me for the last few weeks to get a comic strip going. Voilà: Two Bunnies and a Duck will be updated every two weeks. Doing a comic strip is harder than it looks. How the #@%≈$ do comic strip artists keep the characters looking the same in every panel? I […]

The White Elephant in the Room

February 7th, 2008

William at Robot Action Boy recently pointed out this second annual White Elephant Blogathon which sounds pretty cool. Participants select an awful (or sometimes good) movie, which another randomly selected blogger must view and do a writeup on. All of the blog posts will be published on April 1st. Hurry; deadline for participants is February […]

The Sound of Love

February 4th, 2008

Browsing the newly opened online archive of The Atlantic magazine allowed me to re-read The Man from Heaven, an astute appreciation of Burt Bacharach written by Francis Davis in 1997. It’s an excellent piece, coming along just as I’m adding Bacharach’s “South American Getaway” (from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid soundtrack) to an […]

In Stereo (Where Available)

February 2nd, 2008

My new time-waster: TV show opening credits from 1985-89. The clips are arranged by year in groups of seven or eight — but otherwise they play randomly. Hit shows bump up against obscurities, or dopey sitcoms follow action dramas. It’s fun to check out the dated music and fashions, and also the fact that opening […]

Freshness & Quality

February 1st, 2008

Talk about ephemera from the past… a recent eBay purchase arrived stored in this ancient looking plastic bag:

The cent sign and area for a handwritten price tells me it’s not recent, and based on the groovy flowers and lower case “fresh” lettering I’d say it’s from the ’70s. I vaguely remember bags like this (possibly […]