Monkey McMiro

So, I finally got to see the fan art, and spend some time with the fan-artist. I've had a good time here in Virginia, but it never lasts long enough. However, it will also be good to head back home.

I think Monkey's version is actually better than mine.

Ink

I am enjoying my new inks, and Mai's hair is finally coming into its true glory.

Funny how doing things with one's own two hands (rather than digitally) can be so satisfying (if a bit messy).

Deadlines

I have an essay due tomorrow, and a conference which starts this afternoon. Which pretty much means I need to finish the essay... well, now. And yet somehow I can't quite get started.

The conference should be good, but of course what I really want to be doing is writing my book.

Or visiting the Portland International Rose Test Garden. (More photos here; read about gardens in Portland here, which includes links to some other favorites of mine which I've linked in the past.)

Or really, anything but finish this essay.

And now it seems to be time for lunch.

Chameleon

The friend who inspired this cartoon came over for dinner last night... it's nice to have friends that don't think all my cartoons are funny. Particularly if they don't mind me drawing more cartoons about them.
She also doesn't read blogs, but she does
enjoy good Indian food (not to be confused with "Indiana food," which, as a Hoosier, she probably also enjoys, but which I don't cook).

Completely unrelated: If you hear Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters and Miles Davis' On the Corner rumbling out of a Quaker-grey car somewhere in the Midwest (and possibly coming to a town near you!), that's probably me.
I realize that, musically, I'm behind the times, but what else is new?

Summer is here (almost)

Always your source for good advice!

Follow up

I was going to write about the Ents coming to my house, but I'm too tired to write anything particularly amusing.

However: here is the cartoon I promised.
When I get Monkey's version, I'll post that too, but it probably won't be until sometime in June.

It Runs in the Family

I wrote a post a few weeks ago called "Copyright Infringement," and yesterday I found that MonkeyMcMiro has appropriated an as-yet unpublished cartoon for a project on recycling (seriously: no rim-shot required).
I will post it as soon as I am able to find the original and scan it; hopefully I will also be able to post Monkey's version.

Until then, you'll have to settle for a Biblically-themed cartoon.
(I find it quite amusing that spell-check wants to replace "biblically" with "barbarically").

Friday

It's the last Friday (or as we Quakers call it, "Frigga's Day," after the Norse goddess most closely related to Venus [Friday: OE. frgedæg, corr. to MLG., MDu. vrdach (Du. vrijdag), OHG. fratag (G. freitag); i.e. DAY of Frg = ON. Frigg name of the wife of Odin, prop. sb. use of fem. of Gmc. *frjaz noble, FREE; WGmc. tr. of late L. Veneris dies day of Venus, from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology]).
Hopefully not the very last Friday, but the last Friday of this semseter. I've gotten almost all of my work done, and I'm not terribly motivated to get going on the last little bit (although I suppose I should at least check my deadlines).
So I guess I'll sit and enjoy a cup of tea this afternoon. Remember: don't let it brew too long!

Kant's "stocking-suspenders"

From Thomas de Quincey, "The Last Days of Immanuel Kant":

"...for fear of obstructing the circulation of the blood, he never would wear garters; yet, as he found it difficult to keep up his stockings without them, he had invented for himself a most elaborate substitute, which I will describe. In a little pocket, somewhat smaller than a watch-pocket, but occupying pretty nearly the same situation as a watch pocket on each thigh, there was placed a small box, something like a watch-case, but smaller; into this box was introduced a watch-spring in a wheel, round about which wheel was wound an elastic cord, for regulating the force of which there was a separate contrivance. To the two ends of this cord were attached hooks, which hooks were carried through a small apeture in the pockets, and so, passing down the inner and outer side of the thigh, caught hold of two loops which were fixed on the off side and the near side of each stocking."

If I wore socks, I would have to have something like this!

And, a belated Happy May Day!

Halle Berry, I wanna be with you

Tuesday's gig was pretty good: I had fun, and I think the audience did as well.
The comments over the past few days have been odd, however.

One fellow came up to me and asked, "So, you have a dog named Biscuit?"
Um, yeah.

The other comment came from a friend who was working in the kitchen during the performance. Yesterday she asked me about my "Halle Berry song." I wasn't really sure what to say; I don't have a song about Halle Berry. She sang a bit--quoted in the title of this post--and I figured out that she meant "Hey Blue Fairy."


"Good! I didn't think you were the kind of person who would write a song about a Hollywood star... and quite frankly, I was a little offended."

Let me say that I think Halle Berry is an attractive woman, and if I were to write a song about a Hollywood actress it might well be about her. (Or Sandra Bullock. Or Julianne Moore. I'll stop now.) If I were to write such a song, however, my friend would certainly be offended (along with many other people), because it would probably come out something like Mojo Nixon's Stuffin' Martha's Muffin.
But I have no plans to write such a song. In fact, I'm working on several songs at the moment, none of which are Halle-related, but they're not coming along quickly.
I find that either they come to me all at once--"Chicken," "The Biscuit Song," and "Don't Call Me"--or else I labor over them and the results are fairly mediocre ("The Swirly Song").
So we'll see what kind of summer it is: walking seems to help, and I just got a new pair of shoes. I'll let you know how they are next week... and who knows? Perhaps I'll post some cartoons as well.

Copyright infringement

So, I spent quite a bit of time working on the t-shirt design only to realize that Cafe Press has this stupid clause in which you have to agree not to use other people's artwork, or some such thing. The back isn't quite as impressive: it just reads,

"I'm Not Bitter!"

I'm hoping that Blogger doesn't have a similar copyright infringement clause, although it would be surprising if they didn't. Or, for that matter, that no one from the school see it and becomes irate. (* It took nine months, but it finally happened: hence the missing logo.)
On the other hand, I suspect that anyone who gets too mad deserves their own copy of the shirt.

Swan Song

→ n.
a person's final public performance or professional activity before retirement: he has decided to make this tour his swan song.
- ORIGIN early 19th cent.: suggested by German Schwanengesang, a song like that fabled to be sung by a dying swan
(from The New Oxford American Dictionary)


I was hoping to offer a t-shirt through Cafe Press indicating both status as alumni of our fair school, and a reassurance that the wearer is not bitter. (Something subtle, such as, "I'm not bitter!") I suspect I'd sell at least one shirt; but I don't have time to monkey around with them today.


On the street where you live: I was on the street where I used to live last week, and noticed something that I had forgotten and not missed: naked jogging man.
Well, he's not naked, just wearing very few clothes. But it's almost enough to make you curse the good weather.


And one last plug for tonight's show: be there or be square! (Of course, some people like that sort of thing.)

Quote of the Day: "There's only so much lint in one's navel."
Said by a woman who has never seen my navel.

Koolaid & Candle Jam

Come hear some old songs and a one tomorrow night!
And as a special bonus treat, I'll wear my beret (if I can find it).

Back in the News

Mr Miro, who has featured prisoners in past shows, said he wanted to draw attention to the migrants' plight.

At least half of almost 30,000 illegal arrivals in Spain's Canary Islands, off West Africa, in 2006 were Senegalese.

Mr Miro defended his initiative, saying that he wanted to show solidarity toward immigrants.

He said some of the eight immigrants used in the catwalk show had started the process of obtaining Spanish work permits, while the others were in the country illegally.

"It's a way of giving them a tiny bit of me," Mr Miro said, adding that they were paid a small fee.

Another rainy day

Driving back from teaching a Critical Thinking class, I was listening to Bob Dylan:

"You say you're lookin' for someone
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an' defend you
Whether you are right or wrong...

But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe"

Amen.

Campus Mail

I got a fabulous thing in the campus mail today: I've been nominated to be considered for the 2006-2007 Student Choice Award! To quote the letter, "This is one of the highest awards to be given to a faculty member on our campus and it is truly an honor to be nominated."

All I have to do is submit the enclosed form by... April 2. Dang.

Campus mail sucks.

Cold Front

I think this is really cool. It doesn't look like much: you have to listen to the samples to get a sense of what this thing is. For the first few, the "dry" part starts the sound clip, and then the processed version of the same lick follows.
If you have $450 you're not using, please send it to me. (On the other hand, if I got one of these things, my book probably wouldn't get written.)

From Le Pèlerin (1929)

A Frenchman, an Englishman, and a German each undertook a study of the camel.
The Frenchman went to the Jardin des Plantes, spent half an hour there, questioned the guard, threw bread to the camel, poked it with the point of his umbrella, and, returning home, wrote an article for his paper full of sharp and witty observations.
The Englishman, taking his tea basket and a good deal of camping equipment, went to set up camp in the Orient, returning after a sojourn of two or three years with a fat volume, full of raw, disorganized, and inconclusive facts which, nevertheless, had real documentary value.
As for the German, filled with disdain for the Frenchman's frivolity and the Englishman's lack of general ideas, he locked himself in his room, and there he drafted a several-volume work entitled: The Idea of the Camel Derived from the Concept of the Ego.

Cherem

With the judgment of the angels and of the saints we excommunicate, cut off, curse, and anathematize Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of the elders and of all this holy congregation, in the presence of the holy books; by the 613 precepts which are written therein, with the anathema wherewith Joshua cursed Jericho, with the curse which Elisha laid upon the children, and with all the curses which are written in the law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night. Cursed be he in sleeping and cursed be he in waking, cursed in going out and cursed in coming in. The Lord shall not pardon him, the wrath and fury of the Lord shall henceforth be kindled against this man, and shall lay upon him all the curses which are written in the book of the law. The Lord shall destroy his name under the sun, and cut him off for his undoing from all the tribes of Israel, with all the curses of the firmament which are written in the book of the law. But you that cleave unto the Lord your God, live all of you this day.

And that's only part of it...

It's quite a reaction considering that Spinoza thought that "a person's actions should not be aimed at pleasing God, but rather at acting in conformity to the nature of God" (in Antonio Damasio's paraphrase--seems accurate enough to me).

Voltaire wrote this about Spinoza:

And then, a little Jew, with a long nose and a pale complexion,
Poor but satisfied, pensive and reserved,
A subtle but hollow spirit, less read than celebrated,
Hidden under the mantle of Descartes, his mentor,
Walking with measured steps, comes close to the great being:
Excuse me, he says, addressing him in a whisper,
But I think, just between us, that you do not exist at all.

That's not really true, of course, but his conception of God is certainly different from that of the Judeo-Christian tradition. After all, he wrote, "He who loves God must not expect God to love him in return."



You've probably guessed by now, but I really like Spinoza.

Mac & PC

Maybe this is Jeff's problem: he's a Mac user. Sure, it's easy to use and does a lot of cool stuff, but does it remind you to update your blog? (I don't know what Cougar Shaman's problem is, though.)

These cartoons aren't merely part of an effort to brown-nose David into forming a reading group with me...







But perhaps he'll find them somewhat amusing.
I know not everyone does.