Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category

Two things of little to no importance.

Monday, January 12th, 2015

Until I finished my Germany pics I would like to share two random tidbits with you. One is my new purse. As my canvas purse wears out I take a new one off the shelf, paint it or draw on it or pimp it out in some festive manner, retire the ratty old purse out and rotate the new one in. This newest purse is pretty great, mainly because I found a use for a partially dried-out turquoise marker I had lying around. It turns out that partially dried-out markers are excellent for shading. They blend very nicely. I attached some sequins using glittery fabric paint and I think I ended up with a swell end product.

purse

The second item is from a recent trip to Washington D.C. for a meeting. We were put up in an extremely nice high-end hotel with all the fancy amenities. In all the hallways were these big blurry oil paintings reminiscent of Rothko’s work. HOWEVER, in the hallway on the way to my room was a painting that is, frankly, pornographic. I can’t decide exactly how, but it is not family-friendly.

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Right? RIGHT??? I can’t decide if it’s a shot taken from above of a fleshy woman’s lap, or perhaps a from-behind look at some flagrante delicto action, but something’s happening for sure. As soon as I figure out what it is I’m writing a letter to somebody. *clutches pearls, cries “won’t someone think of the children”*

Looking a gift horse DIRECTLY in the mouth.

Wednesday, July 9th, 2014

The Moomins recently returned from a trip to Africa where she spent a month hanging out with relatives and friends. One of those relatives, my Auntie Bo, works for WIZO, the Women’s International Zionist Organization. It was created mainly to help women in Israel and according to the WIZO Wikipedia page:

Today, WIZO runs 180 day care centers in Israel, caring for 14,000 children of working mothers, new immigrants and needy families. The organization also runs summer camps, courses for single-parent families and therapeutic frameworks for children removed from their homes by court order.

That’s nice. Anyway, my aunt runs a chapter in Johannesburg and they have auctions to raise money. A woman in Africa passed away and left the contents of her home for WIZO to auction off. The Moomins was assisting Auntie Bo, organizing the stuff into piles when another lady came over with a puzzled expression on her face. “What are these?” she asked. The Moomins said, “Oh, those are penis shields.” Indigenous men in Africa would wear penis shields to prevent irritation from the rough animal skin pelt skirts. You don’t want to chafe. Now that Western clothing with underpants is more common penis shields have fallen out of popularity, but these were vintage ones from the 60s. “Who would want them?” the woman asked. “You know, my daughter would*,” The Moomins responded. So, when she came back and I said, “Hey, didja bring me anything cool?” thinking I would get something made out of wire or a piece of pottery, she presented me with not one, but two penis shields. A plethora of penis shields! Hooray! You can’t have just one! I didn’t know what to do. Despite what you may think my entire apartment is tastefully appointed, no art with any sexuality of any kind. I do not want these in my home. I cannot decide which drawer I will shove them in to try to forget about them. I insisted my father hold a shield in each hand so I could take a photo. He’s trying to smile but he’s actually saying, “What am I holding right now and why?”

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In keeping with this vaguely sub-gartelian theme, I was asked by a gay co-worker for some signs to hold when he walked in the Gay Pride Parade. He is part of a gay outdoor adventure group. He gave me some witty and naughty catchphrases that he wrote (puns abound, y’all) and I designed a variety of posters based on them. I went to their Facebook page and researched all the places the group had traveled to (one was called Gaylordsville which is ridiculous, c’mon now) and used them as background images for the signs. I think they turned out great. Head’s up: some of these are a bit rough-and-tumble so don’t look at them if your workplace is uncool.

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*NO I WOULD NOT.

I went to Disney’s Realm of Thaumaturgy! Part 2 of 2.

Thursday, June 26th, 2014

Parades! I love parades. For a lazy person such as myself they are a thing of beauty. YOU sit still, and THEY walk past you. I always feel like a debauched Roman lord when I watch a parade. “Yes, yes, go by with your instruments and dancers and entertain me en route. I shall sit here and wave if so inclined.” Since the Disney people have all the money ever in the world they put on a helluva parade, I can tell you. The first one I saw was the 3:00 Festival of Fantasy parade. I got there early and staked out a good spot on the curb. First the Grand Marshalls went by. It was a family and a newlywed couple riding in an oldey-timey car.

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And then there were dancers with Belle and the Beast behind them. I have to say, the picking of the floats and what’s on them got weirder and more arbitrary as they went on, almost as if the parade organizers had walked into an enormous warehouse and cobbled together floats from pre-existing bits of other floats. You’ll see what I mean. So first, Beauty and the Beast.

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On the same float was Cinderella, the sisters from Frozen and the two main characters from The Princess and The Frog.

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Following that was an elaborate float for Tangled, the Rapunzel movie. Which doesn’t make any sense. Tangled came out four years ago and earned $600 million. Frozen came out last year and brought in 1.2 BILLION. People are obsessed with it. I hear that damn “Let It Go” song everywhere I go (really, Korean Grocery Store? Twice? Is that necessary?). Frozen is just a part of a float shared by four movies and Tangled gets its own entire float. And to make a float for Frozen is easy as hell. It’s all about snow and ice which is nice and non-specific. Take a pre-existing float, paint it blue with snowflakes, hang icicles from every horizontal surface and have it blow powdery stuff that resembles snow. I mean, I’m not implying that any float Disney would build would be easy, but that is infinitely less complicated than most.

So, the Tangled float. Loved it. Men were riding giant swinging axes:

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And on the back was an animatronic goat chewing its cud and turning its head from side to side. He was my favorite.

rapunzel-goat

Right behind that was The Little Mermaid float which was unbelievable. Each float was preceded by dancing people in costumes and the ones for The Little Mermaid looked like they came directly from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (a movie about Australian drag queens). I loved these costumes.

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And then the float itself. Wowsers. Everything on it moved – the fish doing conga lines, the starfish, the guy at top, Sebastian. The rear of the float blew bubbles. I was so impressed.

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After that came the Peter Pan float which I was not too blown away by, but I’ve never seen the movie so I imagine it was more impactful to someone who has reference. Loved the glittery rainbow though. I want that in my house. Riding behind Tinkerbell was a huge mechanized crocodile making a loud ticking noise. I thought that was due to faulty construction, but Snorth informed me when I got home that the crocodile swallows a clock in the movie and it’s supposed to tick. Good to know.

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I saw the float coming up next and was like, why is the girl from Brave riding a giant plaid cannon? I was wrong. She’s riding a giant plaid BAGPIPE. New goal in life: ride a giant plaid bagpipe. But not while wearing a full-length crushed velvet dress and twenty pound wig in 90-degree weather. Skip that part. Keep the riding-the-bagpipe part only.

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Then there was the Sleeping Beauty float. Wisely, since the movie with Angelina Jolie just came into theaters, the focus was on Maleficent. I didn’t even see the woman dressed at Sleeping Beauty walk by. It was led by the three fairies. Here’s something I can’t figure out. They were wearing hoop skirts and gliding along on some kind of wheeled platform hidden under their skirts, but you could see their hands, so how did they control it? Was it like a Segway and they used their feet? Or was it being remote-controlled by someone off-site? If you know the answer to this I would greatly appreciate it. Chasing the fairies were men dressed like extras from a Cirque du Soleil production walking on stilts and flapping big purple wings.

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The Maleficient float was actually a giant fire-breathing dragon. It looked like something directly from Burning Man. You could see the man controlling it (he’s sitting in the neck area) and there were all these visible cogs and cranks. It definitely was a (pleasant) departure from the other, more polished floats.

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Here’s where things start to get weird. The Pinocchio float comes by with the bubble ribbon dancers. Okay. Haven’t seen that film in over twenty years so maybe bubbles and ribbons play a big role.

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The finish to the parade is Mickey and Minnie being led by the Katy Perry Dancers! That’s what I called them anyway.

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Seriously. Look at these pictures of Katy Perry. Its spot-on.

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The Mouse Couple was riding on a float covered in the ballet-dancing hippos from Fantasia. But no other references to Fantasia, just the hippos (and maybe an ostrich from the same scene). This was the float that felt especially like “Quick, make a float for Mickey! Hippos! Great! That’ll work!”

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Since I figured I would most likely never return to the Magic Kingdom I wanted to stick around for the Electric Parade and the fireworks, but I didn’t know what to do with myself for most of the day. I went to Belle’s castle and did the interactive tour which was clearly meant for little kids, but I tried to not resemble a creeper as much as is possible when you’re in the midst of a group of five-year-olds alone with no children in tow. I stood in line for what I thought was a boat ride through Ariel the mermaid’s cave dwelling but it ended up being for pictures with Ariel, so I quickly snuck out of there, but not before getting some pics of the glass nudibranch light fixtures.

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I eventually wandered back in Adventureland and opted to go to The Enchanted Tiki Room. Holy Moses. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to live in the 1960s, fret no more, it can be achieved in The Enchanted Tiki Room. The second it ended I walked back around to the front to go again. The second time around I imagined myself holding a sweaty glass filled with Midori and pineapple juice and dressed like a character in Mad Men. It totally worked. It really does transport you. I highly recommend it but a warning: this was the least culturally-sensitive thing I saw while I was there. I flinched numerous times during the experience. Just something to be aware of. RAY. CIST.

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As I sauntered back through Frontierland to get to Main Street where the Electric Parade happened, I saw the moochie egret again. It was like four hours later and he was still there, moochin’.

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The Electric Parade was super-cool. Not only did I feel like a Roman emperor, because of all the cool lights I felt like a futuristic Roman emperor. The kids around me went absolutely crazy, screaming and pointing and dancing wildly. Normally I’m quite the curmudgeon and I would have been all GET OFF MY LAWN about it, but it was so sweet to see and this is their special place, not mine, so I let them accidentally kick and step on my fingers. This was the only remotely good picture I got because darkness and movement is not my camera’s strong suit, but there are a million and one videos of the actual parade for you to watch on youtube if you want to see the whole thing.

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The fireworks were meh. I realized that they can’t have a fourth of July-style show every night, but I left about five minutes in and headed back to the hotel. I craved the embrace of air conditioning. I feel like I got a sense of the place. If I go back to Orlando I will go to Epcot or the Kennedy Space Center. Momma needs more mental stimulation in her theme parks.

Other cool stuff I saw at the Magic Kingdom:

A lampworked clear glass model of Cinderella’s castle.

glass-castle

Gaston’s restaurant. I sing bits of Gaston’s song from Beauty and the Beast all the time (“I USE ANTLERS IN ALL OF MY DECORATING!!!”) and it made me happy to see he had a restaurant. (Also, “AND EV’RY LAST INCH OF ME’S COVERED WITH HAIR!!!”)

gastons

The mosaics in Cinderella’s castle telling her story. They are spectacular.

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The Crystal Pavilion in Frontierland. It was an expensive eating establishment so I didn’t go in, but it looked gorgeous from the outside.

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And of course, I saw two beasties and got very excited. One, a lizard with a red flap on his chin. He waved it at me.

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And a big white ibis that was walking around the waterways.

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Japan 2014, Part 4.

Friday, March 7th, 2014

One of the many things that I enjoyed about Japan was the fact that everything was the same as we have here, but slightly off. Here’s a picture of the subway. We have subways. Japan has subways. However, either due to drunk or suicidal people, the Japanese have decided to put barriers that stay shut except when a train has pulled into the station and the train doors have opened.

subway-barriers1 subway-barriers2

Advertising for things: we have it, they have it. The difference is their ads are non-sexual. All of them. Imagine that. This was the most sexual advertising I saw while I was there.

advertising

I always wondered why the Japanese are famous for their eclectic sexual proclivities and I think if most of the females are dressed like FLDS women and none of your ads show even a glance of side-boob, you’re going to need a whole lot more to get where you’re going in the bedroom. Oh, speaking of advertising, someone asked me if I saw any famous American celebrities in Japanese commercials and I saw only one, this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrSd7DqSO5k

I cannot figure out how Elijah Wood and Peter Rabbit are selling this car, but they are so good for them.

Oh look, cake. We have cake. Wait… are those kernels of corn on top of the frosting?

corn-on-cake

Transitioning beautifully from corn, the Japanese are really into poop. It’s a thing. I passed more than one store selling golden turds on pillows.

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Then I saw this outside a pharmacy. Imagine this outside a CVS here.

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I want elves and Pac-Mans cleaning my entrails.

The pinnacle of this was when I saw a book for Snorth. Snorth reads books to children during Storytime in various libraries, so I glance at books wherever I happen to go seeing if they might be good for her. My first day on my way to the Ghibli Museum I passed a bookstore that was selling a book about a sentient toilet with a Dali mustache who travels through the forest where various anthropomorphic forest creatures void themselves in him. I didn’t buy it and I regretted that for the duration of my travels. I went on a quest to find the book near the end of my trip. I will reveal the result of my journey in my ultimate or penultimate entry (because I’m trying to remain chronological). I’m building toilet-book suspense. Will I find the book? Won’t I? Tune in to find out.

Kyoto! It is a really charming city. It’s a little like a fairytale. During the war the Allies decided not to bomb Kyoto at all to maintain the architecture, so it wasn’t damaged at all. It’s an excellent walking city. In fact, our Frommer’s book gave us a walking tour that I would recommend. We did most of the walking tour our first day there. We started at the Sanjusangendo (SAN-JOO-SAN-GEN-DOE) Temple, home of the 1,001 Kannon (don’t worry, I didn’t know what that meant either). It’s a Buddhist temple built in 1164. It has really nice gardens as well (YAY PINE TREES).

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Sanjusangendo is the longest wooden building in Japan. It needs to be really long because it houses a giant statue of the Goddess of Mercy, flanked on either side by 500 golden human-sized statues of her as well (that’s what the word Kannon means, Goddess of Mercy). If you’re wondering why each statue clearly does not have 1,000 arms as intended, I found this explanation:

1000-armed Kannon are equipped with 11 heads to better witness the suffering of humans and with 1000 arms to better help them fight the suffering. Note that the actual statues have only 42 arms each. Subtract the two regular arms and multiply by the 25 planes of existence to get the full thousand.

To me this sounds like the sculptors were like, “Are you serious? 1,001 statues, each with 1000 arms? No. Forty-two arms. We’ll make it a divisible number or something. I’m not carving a bajillion arms for eternity.”

I wasn’t allowed to take photos, but other people have so here’s what it looks like in there. It was beautiful, rows and rows of glimmering figures in the dim light.

Sanjusangendo_9508 Sanjusangendo_Thousand-armed_Kannon

Standing in front of all the golden statues were twenty-eight profoundly disturbing Buddhist guardian dieties. They were disturbing because they were human-sized and while they were carved out of wood, their eyes were made of crystal so they totally resembled human eyes. Most of them had intense expressions and ripped muscles, so the shiny eyes became even more off-putting. I believe they were constructed to put the fear of God in people, and I was certainly afraid. Stop looking at me, Wind Guardian! You too, Thunder Guardian! You’re making me uncomfortable!

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It’s such a long building that they hold archery tournaments in there. And in January people with chronic headaches can line up outside and be touched on the forehead with willow branches in an attempt to be healed.

Now, here’s something you’re going to hear over and over again. Sanjusangendo burned down in 1249 and was rebuilt in 1266. I cannot tell you how many buildings I visited that had burned down and been rebuilt. I visited one that I think burned down eight times. Hey! Japan! Here’s an idea: don’t build all your buildings out of wood and paper. You have rocks. I saw them all over. You have an impressive clay culture. You can make bricks. You know what bricks are known for? Being not flammable. I know you get earthquakes and the wood probably flexes in a way that works for you, but at least build part of the building out of stone or something so you don’t have to start from scratch each and every time. I’m exhausted just thinking about building these colossal structures over and over.

After leaving Sanjusangendo, we walked a bit down several streets until we got to a house that belonged to a potter named Kanjiro Kawai, and when he died  in 1966 it was turned into a museum of his work. This is important. If you go to Kyoto, you must go here. Not because of the pottery (I didn’t much care for it, too thick and heavy and rough-looking for my taste) but because they kept the house intact and chances you will not be able to walk around a typical two-story Japanese house otherwise. It was so exciting for me to go into a home done in a style that has been the standard in Japan for centuries and centuries. I loved it.

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Because space is such a premium, it was amazing how the house was laid out. It was labyrinthine. In the backyard Kawai had built a really impressive series of kilns to fire his work (there was also a dirt kiln built under a covering to protect it from the rain, that was cool too.) Regardless of my feelings for this guy’s work, he clearly cared about making pottery and his care for his craft really shows. It gives you warm fuzzies to be there.

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After we left Kawai’s home/museum, we trekked up the side of a mountain. Ugh. It was rough. I am not an athlete and I had to pause several times to lean against something and catch my breath. The only problem is the entire side of the mountain is covered in graves, so more often than not I was leaning up on a family’s tomb. There are cemeteries everywhere in Japan, tucked in corners. I think that because they cremate their dead, there’s no worry of contamination if there’s flooding or something like that, so the graves are right next to apartments or restaurants. First we walked past an enormous crematorium with tons of flowers outside.

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And then the mountain of tightly packed graves. You better know where your family plot is because otherwise you ain’t gonna find it ever.

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After finally making it to the top of the mountain we came upon the Kiyomizu Temple, but we knew that was going to be covered in our organized tour the following week, so we gave it a casual pass-through. We then walked down the mountain down a great touristy road. It had all kinds of fun stuff to check out – snacks specific to Kyoto, green tea ice cream, souvenirs, fans, yukata and pottery. The Moomins is obsessed with pottery so we had to check out the main pottery shop which was two floors of pure awesome. I would have bought a great many items except the prices of things in Japan are depressing. Here, I took some pictures in the store:

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Okay, these are little soy sauce dishes. Very wee. Plain. Basic. There’s 100 yen to 1 dollar, so if you move the decimal point over you’ll notice that the entire front row is $115.00. Why? That was pretty much the case for the whole trip. I would see a teapot I liked, nothing special or extravagant, and I’d say, “I would like to own that! It would be a lovely addition to my home!” and it would be $9,000.00. Seriously. Not an exaggeration. It kept me in check because about 90% of the things I wanted forced me to contemplate selling my car to pay for it, so, not surprisingly, I didn’t get them. Have another example:

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That lumpy small rinkydink sake cup that looks like an elementary school kid’s project is $336.00. Yeah, no.

After walking for several hours we started heading back to our hotel room. On the way we passed one of the restaurants specializing in only crab which I christened “crabatoriums.” The Moomins decided after looking at the stellar plastic food examples with claws sticking out of them that she wanted crab for dinner and it’s her vacation too, so even though I’m not heavy into crab I was like, sure, let’s do this. We walked in and realized that this was four restaurants, one on each floor, each one serving a different type of cuisine. We had to mime walking sideways and clicking our pincers so the maitre d’ would understand which restaurant we wanted. We probably looked super-smooth. After we had Marcel-Marceau’d enough, they said they understood and they told us to leave our shoes with the shoe-keeper and go into the elevator to the fourth floor. This was the sign in front of the shoe-keeper’s booth.

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Anywhere else in the world, the act of walking into a building, surrendering your shoes and stepping into a tiny elevator going to an unknown floor feels SO VERY SKETCHY. I said, “If this was happening in New York or Prague or someplace like that, this evening would end with us in bathtubs full of ice missing our kidneys.” But this is Japan and crime isn’t even remotely close to what we’ve become accustomed to. We arrived at the fourth floor where the waitress took one look at us and led us to a Western table and chairs. Then she handed us the menu which blew my mind. You think you like crab? You better. It’s in everything.

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Crab.

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Crab.

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CRAB.

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Craaaaaaaaaaaaaab.

This is my lovely mother doing her best pincer impression while showing the cover of the menu.

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And these sumo-wrestling crabs were on the placemat.

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We ordered something reasonably-priced (no need for the $100 Crabocalypse) and the crab was delicious. It tastes very similar to the fake crab used in California rolls, but much more delicate and nuanced. I had a crab don, which was warm vinegared rice, cooked egg shavings, salmon roe and pieces of crab. I’m going to try and make it at home. I found a photo online of what it looked like. In addition to being yummers, it was nice to look at.

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Outside the crabatorium was a fire pit with couches around it and a tea kettle hanging down (not unlike what you see in the pictures of the potter’s home above). The Moomins said, “Hey, you’re redoing your kitchen and you have a ton of space above the stove… Why don’t you hang a tea kettle there? It will a cool vertical visual for people to see when they come in.” Since I’ve been to Japan and seeing all their amazing design I’ve reevaluated my fish backsplash idea. I think I’m going to take my mom’s advice and do something with a hanging tea kettle and possibly a giant fish-type thing like you see in the photo, and make the backsplash be something plant-y so it doesn’t fight with the fish/tea kettle situation. I need to make some drawings and get back to y’all on this.

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Next, a temple fair and the Nishiki Market.

Superb Owl 2014.

Tuesday, February 4th, 2014

Wow. Did everyone catch that amazing Super Bowl? Where the guy did the thing, and everyone cheered? That was something else.

Sports Exclamation

Truthfully, I didn’t watch. I came home at 9:30 at night and caught the last ten minutes when the Seahawks had destroyed the Broncos and everyone was just killing time until the pain was over. In case you didn’t watch (and chances are if you read this blog you did not) the final score was 43 to 8, Seahawks. I assumed that there would be two NFL teams playing, not one NFL team and a bunch of homeless people they rounded up from outside Metlife Stadium, but apparently I was wrong. Listening to the announcers try to fill up time in the fourth quarter when the game was clearly won was sad. I’m surprised they didn’t start reading their mail on air. Anyway, hooray or I’m sorry depending on which team you were rooting for and good luck to whoever plays next year that I will pay just the smallest amount of attention possible to.

And concerning the commercials: eh. I saw most of them and I didn’t really care about any of them. Radio Shack was good. Doberhuahua was decent. The Bud Light commercial was great only because Reggie Watts and a llama were in it. Other than that, whatevs. None of them were on par with the Mercedes chicken commercial. That, that was a masterpiece.

Addendum: ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

SLEEPY.

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014

Ugh, this week. My job wanted me to make a book for a upscale hard liquor and the exact note I got was, “Make it nightclub, lounge, cityscapes, hot girls dancing. Think glamorous sluts.” I was like, “Uhhhhh, have you met me? My idea of a perfect evening involves Japanese takeout, lying in bed wearing a housedress and watching a marathon of Lockup/Lockdown/Jail. I am not your target audience.” But as an arteeste, I must step out of the confines of my life in order to appeal to a brand that appeals to…people who like glamorous sluts. Sigh. Anyway, I stayed up a couple of nights and I think I did a pretty good job. Way to explore my non-demographic. I smudged any information I thought would get me in trouble if I shared publicly.

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Kreeesmas.

Thursday, December 26th, 2013

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a happy and healthy New Year! Two things I wanted to talk about. First, I designed a nice and tasteful card for our consultants. We gave them a coffee sampler. See, not everything I design is tugboats and dinosaurs. Sometimes I can be an adult too if need be.

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Two, in watching the myriad of Christmas films that are thrust into our respective maws at this time of year, I have come to the conclusion that my favorite is How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the live-action one with Jim Carrey. I’m not proud of that. I feel like as an avid theater-goer my tastes should be more refined. But they are not. I think Jim Carrey should win the Lifetime Achievement award at the Oscars for this film. My favorite moment is when he pulls the tablecloth off the table, nails it, and then comes back to knock all the stuff off and push it over. That in itself is a magical niblet of cinema. If you’ve met me, you’ve heard me quote this film. Go watch it again with people you love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBUwNpsRrRI

Festive medley.

Monday, December 23rd, 2013

1. Ghetto hikes. The explanation is at the top of the page. Enjoy yourself.

http://ghettohikes.tumblr.com/

 

2. Also, emojis incorporated into works of art. After studying art history for a whole bunch of years, I enjoy this more than I probably should.

http://emojinalart.tumblr.com/

 

3. Ancient tooth bridge! I think it looks neat.

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4. A few things I’ve noticed on my travels around New York:

a. There is a Victoria’s Secret directly downstairs from my job. I was walking past it and they had some fluffy useless-looking garment in the window.

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Here’s the problem: for some reason I thought the puffs were teats and this was a garment made to look like multiple bosoms. You follow me? Like a dog. Like this.

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And I was appalled. I was like, “Is this where fashion is headed??? That is quite enough of that!” But then I looked closer and realized I was wrong and felt pretty damn stupid. Teats at VS? Really, Jessica? Get it together.

b. In keeping with awkward intimates, I was walking through Chelsea where there is a large male gay population. Therefore, many window displays cater to that. I’m all for it. However, bigger is not always better. This store had a pair of shorts in the window that someone had attempted to stuff so as to convey a great amount of masculinity. But they accomplished that by shoving wads of newspapers in there, so what comes across is elephantiasis of the testicles combined with a potential hernia. That does not entice me to buy your shorts, store. Be more particular with your stuffing.

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c. I bought a salad at a McDonald’s recently (have you had their Southwest Salad, because it is delicious) and I noticed a sign on their wall.

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Oh, they did not bold-facedly rip off the Island of the Bahamas campaign, did they? Yes they did.

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They took the diagonal tear-drop-y shape thing with the turquoise tones and everything! Their graphic designers didn’t even try. I was not planning to go to this waterpark because I don’t feel like coming home with strange itches, but I certainly won’t now. Shame on you.

I made something and it turned out nicely.

Thursday, December 19th, 2013

Remember when I bought those glass beads on Etsy a while back? Well, I finally finished my lava-toned lariat and it turned out GREAT. I’m so pleased especially because I made most of it up on the fly. I wanted to try a new stitch (Dutch spiral) so I did a bunch of that, and then I decided to do something snazzy at the bottoms with tassels, so I came up with something for that, and then I saw a pair of earrings on the cover of my latest copy of Beadwork Magazine, so I took elements of that and built a centerpiece. Here’s the cover.

beadwork-magazine

It all came together. Two thumbs up to me.

lava-lariat1 lava-lariat2 lava-lariat3

I wore it to my company’s holiday party. I got several compliments on it. I wish I was a monkey so I could give myself an additional two thumbs up (because they have hands for feet, I wasn’t sure everyone was going to get that, maybe it was too cryptic).

party1 party3 party2

Lava lariat complete. On to the next crafty activity.

Using my skills for good, sort of.

Wednesday, December 4th, 2013

My department here at Publicis, New Business, likes to send out a Christmas card to our friends in the other departments every year. Since I have the most advanced Photoshop knowledge, I am the one to build it every year. I was given absolutely no instruction this year, so I thought about what I wanted to convey. And I remembered, hey, Ceelo came out with an Christmas album last year, I remembered thinking that the cover was a hoot. And indeed it is.

CEELO_XMAS_KEYART_FM2-3

I decided we should take is a step further, so instead of a sleigh I went with a tugboat (because tugboats are my favorite of the seafaring vessels) and instead of horses, I went with the most jacked-up-looking dinosaur I have ever seen. Then I had to find individual qualities to highlight for each person. Børkke suffers from various skin ailments so I gave her a giant tube of Aquafor to cuddle in her arms. S. loves the Jersey Shore, so I gave him my favorite picture of Pauly D. Nessa has perpetual angers, so she got a thundercloud with Grumpy Cat in it. A. loves to cook and is from a particularly Polish part of Pennsylvania, so he got to be the Pierogi King. And J. loves raves, so he got swirly rave lights. He also happens to look rather stoned in the picture which helps with the rave thing. And my picture I took recently while wearing reindeer antlers and making the most disturbing face ever. That is not photoshopped. That is my natural freakiness. I didn’t add anything to that pic. I figured it was magical enough as it was. I found a silver bit online, created the leather bridle and added some silver skulls I found on etsy and poof! A weird and wonderful new Christmas card is born. We’ll see if my co-workers like it.

Concerning the comment in the lower right-hand corner: We’re seated in a quarantined area near the mailroom because we are unfit for the rest of the agency. It’s for the best. We sing a great deal, loudly. Makes it hard for some people to work.

christmas-card-2013