some are left unfinished

It's kind of funny to consider the fact that our species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, is roughly three hundred thousand years old, and possibly even older if recent discoveries are true. Yet for all but the last three centuries of that span, predicting the future was fairly easy: other than natural disasters, everyday life in fifty years time would resemble everyday life fifty years ago. For 99% of human existence, the future was static (or so we're told). Then something happened, and the future began to change, increasingly rapidly, until we get to the present day when things are moving so fast that it's barely possible to anticipate trends from month to month.

Of course it's easy to romanticize the past - largely because many of us are able to remember our own. Life was perfect when I was a child even though I know I recall it imperfectly and the same goes for those more recent past decades. When I was young I romanticized the future.  Now it frightens me - not so much for the fact that there's only just so much time allowed to me personally, but because our race in recent history has caused and continues to cause such damage to our biosphere. The planet will continue, no doubt of that, but so much of what makes our lives beautiful is at risk.

I like to imagine a more equitable future for us and all the other species with whom we share the world. Yet I dare not envision some particular utopia - a word that translates from the Greek as 'no place' - but simply to hope for a larger world less driven by greed. I know things were different once and perhaps they can be again.

The fact that there is a highway to Hell and only a stairway to Heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic numbers.
~ Anon
 
♡

M. Corbeau à Paris

Crow here. It's a little known fact that a favorite hobby of the gargoyles at Notre Dame Cathedral is collecting jokes. There's nothing they enjoy more than a good laugh at the foibles of humanity. Why else do you think they allowed Quasimoto the leeway they did when he was running around the rooftops, ringing the bells, grabbing young women and generally causing a commotion? It's because he was a clown. A sad clown, yes, but he provided some amusement to their generally tedious task of spitting rain water past the gables.

I well remember when susan had decided to spend some time in Paris (unfortunately she'd chosen three months in winter but that's another story) and had flown off one afternoon to see the Eiffel Tower while I relaxed with my old friend Gregoire the Cracked Horn. He'd overheard a story that went like this:

There were five passengers on a flight - a politician, a rich man, an old priest, a hippy and the world's smartest man. After the plane had been in the air a little while they noticed the engines sputtering and wondered if there was trouble. Just then the pilot rushed into the cabin and said, 'I can't restart the engines and the plane is going to crash. I suggest you each grab a parachute and follow me.' He opened the door outside then went to a cupboard, grabbed a parachute and leaped out. The other passengers looked in the cupboard and found only four parachutes.

The politician took a parachute and said, 'I have constituents who need me to be in Congress for a very important vote so I must save myself.' He jumped out.

The rich man said, 'I have a very important business and my stockholders are counting on me to keep them rich.' He grabbed a parachute and jumped out.

The world's smartest man said, 'I'm the world's smartest man so it should be evident to all why I need this parachute.' He followed the others.

Now only the old priest and the hippy were left and the priest said, 'It's all right my son. I've lived a long and fruitful life and look forward to my reward. You take the last parachute.'

The hippy replied, 'Don't worry about it father. The world's smartest man just grabbed my back pack.'

^_^

* reprise from 2009 :)

canine companions

A few days ago we'd stopped at one of our stations in the park where a family of crows meet us for lunch (their lunch, that is) when I noticed someone shouting and waving from higher up on a cross path. Since a group of people were passing with their dogs I assumed he was greeting friends and we continued on our way. A few minutes later the young man and his girlfriend caught up with us and, gesturing at the big brown dog they had on a leash, asked if she was ours. Our answer was no, but we patted her and talked to them for a few minutes. They'd found her wandering lost wearing just a collar with no tags. When I asked about the leash he told me it was his belt. I wonder how many young guys wear belts these days? After a few minutes they went off in the opposite direction with the plan of putting a note online before taking her to a shelter. We were kind of sad about the sweet natured beast who appeared to have been abandoned.

Later on our walk we decided to take a different path from one of our usual ones. About ten minutes along it I recognized the big brown dog walking behind a different young couple. As they passed I stopped them briefly to ask how they'd found her and heard, 'She'll go off with anybody'. I should have mentioned she needed some identification but they'd kept on walking and the chance was gone. We were glad to see she'd been reunited with her owners and still just a little bit sad because her owners were idiots. She deserved better ones.

Dharma by Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her dog house
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Ghandi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

♡

springtime with Crow

Spring is generally known as Mud Season here in Halifax. While people on the opposite coast have already welcomed snowdrops and crocuses and are currently spending their mornings dancing through fields of daffodils, we're hauling on our Wellingtons before heading to the park. Guess where Crow has gone? Must be nice to have wings and an open schedule. Goodness knows, he might even be in England in 1903 for all I can tell from this postcard he sent.

Before I climb into my rubber overshoes, I thought I'd mention something about blogs you may or may not already know. Earlier in the week all the content disappeared from a co-blogger's site. Eventually I heard from him that his blog had been hacked and all the posts deleted by some awful person. It wasn't until then I remembered I hadn't backed up my own blog in about two years. Losing everything we've written over the course of years can be a scary prospect and it's not just hackers we need to be concerned with.

Remember that Google owns Blogger and all its content. Occasionally blogs disappear for no reason Google can explain or fix. There have also been situations where Google decided to block a blog for policy violations the blogger may not have made. 

Anyway, here's how I backed up Phantsythat and Adventure's Ink to my computer. Now I should mention that I have an Apple mac

Open Blogger
Open 'Settings'
Open 'Other'
You'll see 'Import & back up' at the top
Click on 'Back up content'
Click on 'Save to your computer'
The content backup including all posts, pages and comments (but not pictures) can be saved as an XML file (that appears on Text Edit on my computer).

Okay, if you open the XML file you've created you'll see gibberish (at least I do). What you do next is to highlight the file on your desktop and go to 'open with' in 'finder' (file). In my case I'm offered the choices of opening the XML file in Safari or Opera (it might be different for you depending on the browsers you run) since XML can only be opened online. I opened 'blog-03-13-2016-1.xml' in Safari. It still looks like gibberish but if you keep scrolling down you'll see the text of your blog posts appear. You can save the XML/text edit file in your documents and replace/update as you prefer.

This is simply what I know how to do with a Blogger blog and the instructions about that are standard, but if you use a different service, have a PC, or need clearer information you can always do a search for how to back up your own blog. Considering XML was designed for Windows you might even see a pristine copy of your blog reproduced outside Blogger. While I can't be sure of any of that what I am sure of is that it's good to have a backup copy of all the text I've written over the years and the comments made by my friends.

Crow promised to return when the Spring flowers bloom here - that usually happens some time in May. Perhaps I'll be lucky this year and he'll come home early; I'll keep the fruitcake and the Remy stocked up just in case.  He's always full of surprises.

Quote of the week:
“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process”
– Vincent Van Gogh
  
♡

santa Crow 2015

This year's winter card is well under way but not painted yet as I'd hoped.
Ah well, I hope you'll like it as it is at the moment.

May you always have walls for the winds,
a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,
laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,
and all your heart might desire.

More soon and Happy Holidays from Crow and me :)
♡

another whistle stop

A lady who traveled by train to a village in the southwest of England arrived at the station to see nothing but countryside all around. She asked the station master, 'Where is the village?' The man replied that it's about 2 miles away, down the hill. The lady then asked 'Wouldn't it have been better to build the station near the village?' To which the station master replied, 'Yes madam, but we thought it better to build it near the railway.'

Decades ago I was living in England and loving to travel by train whenever I got the chance. For me it was a return to some bucolic yesteryear when the landscape was unspoiled. Imagine my surprise to read that my experience wasn't shared by the Victorians when railway travel expanded enormously in the mid 1800s. Many of them described the havoc wreaked upon urban centers by railways, such as driving up real estate prices, devastating working class housing, and adding to urban congestion. They also protested the effects of the new transportation technology upon the pristine countryside:

'Once it were a capital county, I say. Hah! you asks me what have happened to it. You take and go and look at it now. And down heer'll be no better soon, I tells 'em. When ah was a boy, old Hampshire was a proud country, wi' the old coaches and the old squires, and Harvest Homes, and Christmas merryings. — Cutting up the land! There's no pride in livin' theer, nor anywhere, as I sees, now.'

'You mean the railways.'

'It's the Devil come up and abroad ower all England!' exclaimed the melancholy ancient patriot.

Within a few decades the term Railway Mania was used to describe a huge speculative bubble. Reporting the investment frenzy of the time and the subsequent crash author Charles Reade wrote:

'When this sober state of things had endured some time, there came a year that money was loose, and a speculative fever due in the whirligig of time. Then railways bubbled. New ones were advertised, fifty a month, and all went to a premium. High and low scrambled for the shares, even when the projected line was to run from the town of Nought to the village of Nothing across a goose common. The flame spread, fanned by prospectus and advertisement, two mines of glowing fiction, compared with which the legitimate article is a mere tissue of understatements; princes sat in railway tenders, and clove the air like the birds whose effigies surmount their armorials; our stiffest Peers relaxed into Boards [of Directors]; Bishops warned their clergy against avarice, and buttered Hudson an inch thick for shares; and turned their little aprons into great pockets; men, stainless hitherto, put down their infants, nurses included, as independent subscribers, and bagged the coupons.'

Remind you of anything we've witnessed since then? People are always looking for a way to get rich quick.

The coming of the railway age was a watershed in the history of Great Britain. Some Victorians were happy and others mourned the changes that came with the new technology. Nowadays I often feel like one of those genteel cynics who sees our society heading full speed across a goose common where there is no track. Then again, perhaps all is well and I'm just getting old and cranky.

“Intelligence may indeed be a benign influence creating isolated groups of philosopher-kings far apart in the heavens…On the other hand, intelligence may be a cancer of purposeless technological exploitation, sweeping across a galaxy as irresistibly as it has swept across our own planet”
– Freeman Dyson

♡

a fawlty assumption

This one didn't work out quite the way I'd hoped but it's enough to give a general idea of the time I went up north (north being the little village of Eastgate in Co. Durham) to visit my grandmother. I'd been in England, living on my own in London, for a couple of months by then and a visit was already overdue. What was I? 18 or 19, perhaps? Goodness knows, I thought I was about as grown up and sophisticated as a girl could be. My grandmother was probably 80 or maybe a bit older by the time I arrived on her doorstep - the first we'd seen of each other since 1958 when my mother and I had spent 3 months traveling the country visiting family. Naturally we'd been in Eastgate a lot. My granddad had died two years before so she was on her own in the two storey cottage they'd shared in retirement.

So there I was back with my grandmother for what I'd imagined would be a relaxing few days of quiet teas, long walks, and early bedtimes that would let me unwind from my busy life in the south country. What happened instead is that I'd hardly got in the door that evening before she put on her fur collar and her sparkly earrings, refreshed her lipstick and perfume, and hustled me out the door and around the corner to the local pub. My grandparents had been publicans among their many occupations over the years and had always been well loved in the area. So, unsurprisingly, just about everybody from the village and roundabout was there waiting for us to arrive, including the village bobby.

Now I never was much of a drinker, but people were buying rounds for my grandmother and me and the only way she was going to get another glass of blackcurrant brandy was when I'd finished what was in my glass. Nanna enjoyed her drink as much as a good joke and there were plenty of both going around the tables that evening. As it got later I comforted myself with the knowledge that soon the landlord would call 'Time!' and everybody would finish their drinks and go home. I'd had a very long train ride and a bus trip to follow so I was tired to say the least. Finally I heard the little bell ring and the landlord's call for last drinks. The policeman left. Five minutes later he was back wearing his comfortable clothes and the party continued for three more hours.

I could tell you some stories about some of my grandmother's exploits but it's late now and I should go to bed. I'm not the woman my nanna was. :)
♡

Crow shares

This afternoon while Crow and I were chatting about this and that the subject of the sharing economy popped up as it often will. It does, doesn't it? Don't we tell our children to share their toys; don't we share a plate of cookies with a friend; don't we share space when we chat with an old friend? Sharing happens all the time  as a natural part of life. You can imagine my surprise when Crow informed me that all the above is not what is meant by the words 'the sharing economy'.

Crow: The problem with these 'sharing economy' companies is that although they hold themselves up to be champions of the people they are actually exploiters. Renting isn’t the same as sharing. When someone pays someone else to sit on the back seat of their car they've rented it out. They've rented the person who drives the car. They rent a couch for the night or a spare bedroom or an apartment when the owner or official renter is away. There is no sharing in the 'sharing economy'. In actuality, what they've undertaken is to participate in a black market economy.

me: Aren't these companies better, cheaper, more convenient?

Crow: Why are they cheaper and more convenient? It's because they bypass normal regulatory frameworks. The laws of a country. Where do laws come from and why do they arise? Well, the law follows and reacts to circumstance. The laws on installation of heated water systems for example arose after several disasters with boilers during the Victorian era. The laws on regular maintainence of fire safety equipment have arisen similarly. Hotels and other public places comply with those laws in order to protect people. Air BnB is cheaper because those who host on it do not have to comply as they are private residences, therefore they avoid legitimate overhead costs. 

me: But people who provide these services need the extra money.

Crow: These businesses can only succeed if the people undertaking the work break the law and/or have no employment rights or protection. For example - Uber only works because the company doesn't care about disability legislation or taxi licensing laws. Air BnB only works because people renting their houses out ignore the raft of legislation that hotels and B&Bs have to comply with.

If the regulators get involved because these microbusinesses are breaking the law, the sharing economy company either stands back and says 'we are only an internet platform' or campaigns that the 'old economy' is trying to stifle personal freedom while conveniently forgetting the fact that much of the legislation is in place to protect the customer.

While putting across the view that they are small, hip, entrepreneurial companies, they are in fact bankrolled by companies like Google and Goldman Sachs and are simply a computer platform with a very good legal department and extremely well-funded Government lobbyists. Posing as martyrs of progress and bastions of the free world, all they are is a company trying to create a global monopoly with little regard to any of the social effects their technology entails. The Ubers of this world are just strip-miners. Posing as some kind of 'champion of the people' they use the fruits of the public realm, ie. the internet,  public education, roads, etc, to diminish the wealth of that same public realm by killing jobs and thus eroding the tax-base.

me: I guess I won't be putting that 'Couch to Share - One Night Only' sign in the window. Goodness knows what laws I'd be breaking with that one.

♡

With thanks to Olivier Blanchard.

note: Hope you won't mind seeing a reprise of Crow's Sanctum picture from a few years ago. It's still one of our favorites.

on human flight

A walk in the park is never boring but usually we see things we expect to see - people, dogs, squirrels, crows, bluejays, chickadees, gulls, clamshells, crabshells, flowers, grass, trees, the sea etc. You get the idea. Sometimes we see the unexpected. One day last week we came across a scenario just unusual enough that I have to share it. Unfortunately, since I'm not in the habit of carrying a camera you'll have to settle for a more elementary image.

That day, after passing through a narrow section of the beachside path between some old wwII bunkers, we were surprised to see an older man standing on the shore holding the ropes of a very large parasail*. In actuality he was wearing a harness, knee pads and elbow pads as well as the helmet, plus there were a few more ropes. I hope you'll excuse me being a bit too lazy to draw all that. He did look a somewhat worried. I don't know if you're familiar with the sport of parasailing - I'm certainly not - but what I do know is that the general idea for getting up in the air is as follows:

You want to begin by standing high up on a reasonably steep grassy hillside with the sail spread out on the ground behind while a fairly brisk wind blows up the hill. The pilot then grabs the ropes in the prescribed manner, runs forward, throws his hands high over his head, and, if God is merciful, the glider inflates - floopf. A brief downhill run and the pilot feels the earth dropping away under him. He is flying. Unless, of course, he crashes. The flying and landing parts are beyond the scope of my story.

The man we saw wasn't doing any of that. Instead, he was holding tight to the ropes as the parasail (about 30 feet across and therefore much bigger than I've drawn) shuddered above him in the breeze. The fact the breeze was blowing out to sea might have been part of the reason he looked worried.

We'd barely had time to take in this unusual spectacle before a little boy out walking with his mother caught sight of the man and his apparatus. Transported by sheer delight the little guy ran laughing and shouting across the grass, 'Hey! Hey! Mister! What are you doing?'

It was great.

We kept walking and the little boy went back to his mother. I turned back to see the man spreading the parasail on the grass in preparation of folding it up. I wonder if he's found a suitable hillside?

Before man walked, he yearned to soar, as if on feathered wings. Ever he has sought, in supreme affirmation and ignoble pride, to float upon the wind, high above the mute and pitiless ground. Icarus lives in archetype: Children remain convinced a bright cape will let them fly like Superman.

♡ 
* references to parasailing should probably say paragliding
(thanks, Lindsay)

the open window by Saki

    "My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."

     Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

     "I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."

     Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.

     "Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

     "Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."

     He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

     "Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.

     "Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

     "Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time."

     "Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

     "You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

     "It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"

     "Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window - "

     She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

     "I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.

     "She has been very interesting," said Framton.

     "I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?"

     She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

     "The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.

     "No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.

     "Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

     Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

     In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"

     Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.

     "Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"

     "A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

     "I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."

     Romance at short notice was her speciality.

I hadn't read any Saki stories in a long time before I happened upon them in this handy collection. I drew the picture because I couldn't resist.
♡

back to storyboarding

Okay, I'll admit I've been drawing again. I still have a story, hinted at in pencil sketches I posted a year ago, that seems to become clearer the more I draw. Life certainly would be simpler if the whole of it would just appear on paper or in text. I'm a terrible writer of children's stories because I hate imagining children in danger or distress. Goodness knows there's already enough of that in the news without me adding more. The problem, though, is that stories have to engage a reader's attention and that generally means conflict of some kind or other that needs to be remedied. So I continue to work on these pictures bit by bit  while the story, such as it is, unfolds. I'm thinking to paint them one after another once the line work's all done. Then again, they're interesting enough on their own that I may just start painting them and pass on the story altogether. Time will tell.

Besides, the competition for attention has become pretty intense. It’s amazing just how much we are bombarded by the media – or perhaps allow ourselves to be bombarded is the correct way of saying it. Until something like this animation by Cesar Cepeda is placed under our noses it is easy to imagine that it isn’t too much and that we control it.

The Control from cesar cepeda on Vimeo.


Anyone for a good book? 
♡

the scavengers

There's a story in here somewhere but I tend to go off on tangents even I don't expect - the story I was thinking of has no dragon-like beings. Even as this pair appear to be innocuous enough one can never be entirely sure about the intentions of dragons.

I may paint it, or I may just draw another. These days I'm having a hard time maintaining any creative focus. This could be blamed either on the weather (which has been wonderful) or on the news (decidedly not wonderful).

Til next time.

♡

speculating with Crow

Crow, tired of the snow and rain in these parts this past month*, went off to visit his old Uncle Horus. There's no doubt modern society tends to suppress non-conforming ideas, imagination and adventure so I'm looking forward to his return and our ongoing conversations about perplexing, possibly strange, versions of history prior to Egypt's Old Kingdom.

We know Gobekli Tepe was built 12,000 years ago and was deliberately buried 2,000 years later.
Could the Sphinx date from 10,500BC?
Does the Piri Reis map prove there was an ancient seafaring culture?

Might even Atlantis have been real?

There are things we may never know but, while we don't have to believe everything we read, it's always good to keep an open mind. You never know what you might learn and there's always entertainment to be found:

Les Pyramides d'Égypte from Kheops Pyramides on Vimeo.


* Yes, it snowed again this evening. No accumulation, though.
♡

rearranging and ruminating

It's funny how time slips away when one gets distracted by other things. Once I'd assisted Crow by rearranging his library I undertook the project of doing the same with our own collection of books, none of which have ever been sorted very well. Even in Portland we'd often go from room to room, upstairs and down, in search of a book we knew we'd seen somewhere next to something else. A few days ago our mail carrier rang the bell with a delivery of two new shelving units from Amazon. Why Amazon, you may ask? Well, as you may know, we've moved from one place to another a number of times over the years and rather than keep all our books, movies and video games on the floor we were delighted at the innovation of folding, stackable bookcases. Here in Canada it appears the only place these can be found is on Amazon. When the lady puffed into the lobby carrying one huge box as my husband picked up the other I mentioned my surprise that they weren't delivered by a transport company. After telling me they do all Amazon deliveries my only response was to hope Amazon Canada doesn't start offering refrigerators.

Meanwhile, Crow and I have been continuing to think about a possible solution to the crises humanity faces. Coupled with a commitment to community and co-operative based localised energy schemes, a more innovative locally owned economy and a significant change in values from 'I love shopping' to 'I'd like my grandchildren to have half a chance of a reasonable life,' sound like good ideas.

As Crow says, 'People have been trapped in a bubble of surreal economics and politics for so long that there is no possibility in some of your minds that there is any alternative. There are many; neither crows  or humans are the passive victims of the techno-machine that neo-liberal orthodox thinkers believe us to be. There are a million possibilities for the human condition and you don't have to stick with tired, cynical, self seeking and crass rhetoric of those who appease a system long since shown to be corrupt and past its sell by date.

'Wouldn't it make far more sense to invest in successful co-operatives, which benefit the lives of ordinary people, than to invest billions into failed banking organizations that continually treat the ordinary population with contempt as they continue to develop their self serving shady financial dealings?'

He went on to show me a film of one of his young cousins that you may enjoy too:



Please excuse old Crow portrait, but it's a favorite of us both.
I promise more soon.

♡

Crow and Holmes

When the world refuses to provide the rationality I would prefer it's good to know I can always count on Sherlock Holmes. For the past week my reading time away from the internet has been spent enjoying Arthur Conan Doyle's magnum opus, 'Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Stories'. The four novels came first and now that I've reached page 1051 of this 1400 page book, I'm already feeling sad it will end all too soon.

My friend Crow once spent some time assisting Holmes and Watson in the Mysterious Case of the Four Feathers on Her Majesty's Pillow, a story that never did become part of the published series since even now its shocking revelations could disrupt our confidence in the powers that still rule. Crow has decided that might not be such a bad thing and is busy at this moment going over his notes about the case. Perhaps we'll all know the essentials of that tale soon enough.

One of the most enjoyable parts of reading these stories is in reading about the stories Watson left out of the series. This passage is typical:

'In this memorable year of 1895 a curious and incongruous succession of cases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca - an enquiry which was carried out by Holmes at the expess desire of His Holiness the Pope - down to his arrest of Wilson, the notorious canary trainer, which removed a plague-spot from the East End of London.'


What? A notorious canary trainer? Who wouldn't be interested in learning more about that story? Even though that one will never be told (unless Crow participated in that case too), the ones that remain are sufficient to prove the genius of Sherlock Holmes:

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.”

“Don't talk, Anderson. You lower the IQ of the entire street every time you open your mouth.”

“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.”

'Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'
'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'
'The dog did nothing in the night-time.'
'That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes.

“I'm not a psychopath, I'm a fully functioning sociopath. Do your research.”


Now it's time to sharpen Crow's quill pens and warm the brandy. I'm looking forward to another evening in his library sitting in the comfort of my favorite fireside chair reading while he writes.

♡
ps: modified illustration from the Strand Magazine

artus interruptus

I really had intended to have this Crow portrait finished by now as a surprise for him when he returns from near space. That's as opposed to far space from which picture postcard mail is still quite unreliable. Anyone who's gone to their local postal facility recently will understand that problem exists even without interstellar transport delivery methods. As it is, Crow's original message had suffered some singeing on re-entry so I've been busy doing a bit more interpretation than is usual.

Why isn't it finished, you may be wondering? Well, let's just say I'm as subject to distractions as anyone.

Meanwhile, here's a little movie about space that I found and liked a lot.



Spacebound from Spacebound on Vimeo.

All the best til next time (fairly soon).

♡

another spring

Even though flowers growing outdoors are still rare in these parts, we did see a few crocuses blooming next to a south facing wall yesterday. Today the grass in the park hadn't greened yet but the parking lots were filled with cars and the paths were brimming with smiling people and their excited children and dogs. It must be spring again in Halifax.

I didn't see any lambs in need of feeding but I'm sure they must be out there somewhere. In case you're wondering, this was a picture taken of me doing exactly that many years ago at my grandparents farm in Northern England. I'm not sure where the pinafore went.. or the curls.

A month or so ago I removed the old 'Baby Days' blog after saving the comments I'll always treasure that had been made when it was new. When I first published it in 2007, the only way I knew to post a picture and text that didn't float was to do so as separate posts. Since there are 18 pictures and verses that meant a lot of clicking through 'older posts' to see it in its entirety. Now it's back on a page of its own if you'd like to see it again or for the first time. I'm still not quite sure where it came from.

Meantime, I hope you have a very
Happy Easter
♡

new Adventure

Too much time has gone by since the last Adventure's Ink story but I thought you might like to know there's a new one next door. It's about work, not usually a topic to provide entertainment but often enough the only weird fun we get to have with strangers. Some of them are most strange indeed.

I hope you enjoy reading 'the lottery'.

♡

off the drawing board

Eustace's Gift was finally finished by late yesterday - at least this version was. As usual right after I finish something I look and see a few things I wish I'd done differently while other aspects are pretty close to just right. There's a story behind this painting but it's one I'm not ready to tell right now. If you'd like to see the progression I've posted some transition pictures below.

This was the very first sketch of the scene as I imagined it on a drawing pad last summer.

A few weeks ago I revised the original, added the other main character, and inked outlines and areas that would be in shadow. The next picture in the group I posted last week so won't do so now.

The first color washes continued to define the background while still allowing for either full or partial color of the toys and decorations.

Detailing added in the background and initial character colors done. Obviously, there's still lots of room to intensify the colors and shadows so that's what I did over the course of the next few days. I didn't do any more in between scans because the changes after this one are all pretty obvious even as the difference is notable.

Anyway, it's done and now I'm going to start working on another (and very different) story while this one and the others in the eventual series go back to the portfolio.

I hope it's not too cold and nasty wherever you are. Eustace wishes he could bring everyone the perfect gift.

♡

little distractions

Is is just me or have you also noticed how distracting it can be reading news articles on line compared to elder days when mostly what we read was in printed form on paper? It's not that there isn't a whole lot more information openly available these days but I often, usually, in fact, find I get distracted by silly stuff that either pops up or flashes in bright colors in my peripheral vision. Stuff like this:
Why did Beyoncé lip-sync the Star Spangled Banner at the Presidential inauguration?
She didn't know the words?
Bieber dethrones Gaga on Twitter.
Who are these people?
Can we reverse engineer the brain?
Ask Fox News?

I have to admit that sometimes I'll find something interesting enough or funny enough that I end up being glad I wandered off for a few minutes. Today it was the story about IBM's super computer Watson having been taught natural language by being given access to the Urban Dictionary. When the researchers questioned it later Watson answered their queries with 'Bullshit'. We may be on the brink of AI beings fit to run the world. How could they do worse than this guy?


MAN from Steve Cutts on Vimeo.

The picture above is of Eustace in company - he's a charming but somewhat tentative creature who's trying to learn the ways of a new world.  The painting/illustration is still underway.

♡