New drawing and/or D&D style role playing game board.

I’ve just called the Radford public library and had my late fees forgiven.

It’s National Library Week.

Doesn’t it feel good to be forgiven.

I posted some new art today.

These two men are roommates.

Here is Mike on Easter, feeding ducks:

Here is Sean on Easter, newly scarified:

Easter Egg Cat (filled with Starburst Jellybeans) ponders this.

After my interview yesterday I got a mango-banana Vivanno at Starbucks, which is like a smoothie. (Note: these things are gross.) Because of the name Vivanno, when I was ordering I accidentally pronounced banana “BAH-NAH-NAHHHH” like I was the Queen of England. Which made both me and the Barista laugh (titter stupidly). But her afternoon would get even more entertaining.

Owing to the impossible parking situation downtown, Mike and I carpooled downtown for happy hour/ art opening and I left the 4Runner at Starbucks. When I came back to get the car 2 hours later, someone had driven through the side of the building.

Here Mike recreates the crime:

Another thing that was funny about this is that they did not actually close the Starbucks. They left the door unlocked and people kept going in. Then the harassed Barista would put her hand over her cell phone mouthpiece and say breathlessly, “I’m sorry, we can’t make any drinks. Someone crashed their car through the wall.”

I parked at the gym today in a parking spot that overlooks a 20 foot vertical drop. I have a manual transmission so with my foot on the brake I engaged the parking brake but to my horror the truck kept rolling towards the edge of the cliff. I pulled hard on the parking brake lever while stomping the brake pedal but it did no good.

I was in the process of hurling my body out the driver door (while yelling “HOLY SHIT!” at the top of my voice) before the truck went off the cliff when I realized that both brakes were working perfectly- the car beside me was backing up.

During all of this the only conscious thought in my mind was “what a horrible place for both brake systems to simultaneously fail.”

But ultimately no harm was done and I shakily went in to run on the treadmill.

L.A. Traffic

I really thought traffic in D.C. was worse. California people talk about it MUCH MORE though.

I am insanely paranoid about traffic myself and I plan my entire life around avoiding rush hour. (Around here it is not such an issue.) So I can relate to their demented chatter.

Narrative Paintings

I think the current narrative paintings (paintings that tell a story) are just part of my normal cycle of change. I see them as a backlash to the work I was doing as a grad student. The current art buzzword for this is “reinventing myself” which I think is pretentious and annoying because my sense of self is stable and not bound up in my art. All it really means is that I get captivated by an idea for a while, and then I get bored with it and move on to something else.

As a grad student I was mostly concerned with developing better technique. I also wanted to avoid the smarmy metaphysics that plagues the school. You know what I mean: artist statments that claim you used blue because it was Tuesday and Tuesday reminds you of Marilyn Monroe and blue was her favorite color– but only for shoes.

The most practical approach to meet these goals was to paint objects- still lifes, human bodies, landscapes. I learned a lot doing it and my thesis project was a series of still lifes.

But right now I am tired of all of that and I crave to use my imagination. Thus: narrative paintings.

Quarantine

I saw this movie tonight on Netflix and I thought it was really good. It was scary and suspenseful, but even better, it was logical. And I thought the acting was convincing and avoided being melodramatic. The quarantine itself raises an interesting ethical dilemma: I was sympathetic to the characters trying to escape the disease but I did not want them to get out of the building to spread the illness. Then it would be just like 28 Days Later! Or the Decameron. Yuck.

Netflix

Netflix has really stepped up their customer service. For a long time, it took about 4 days for me to get a new movie but now that’s down to two and they finally enabled instant viewing for Macintosh. (Not my ancient Mac but that’s another story. 4 years and counting.) Today they randomly sent me an extra movie since one I had ordered might be delayed. Sweet!

Netflix Again

Evidence that our language is always changing: “I saw this movie tonight on Netflix.” That is not a normal sentence but I use it all the time.

Spanish Language News

I got tired of CNN.com’s banal reporting, cheesy writing, and whiny, patronizing obsession with the financial crisis. I hate all those articles that use the first person plural to either blame or exonerate the American people at whim. You know: “We” were doomed by evil, greedy executives or else “we” got ourselves into this mess by purchasing BMW’s with home equity loans on our foreclosed houses and ENOUGH! I can’t take it any more.

So I switched to the Spanish version of the BBC which is a completely different universe of reporting entirely. First, the articles are actually analytical. Second, I learn things I never thought about, such as how hot the Argentine president is. Third, I get to practice my Spanish. It is wonderful.

And that is all I have to say. The End.

I have read a lot of dreary articles about the economy lately. Things do look bad today, but I look forward to a bright future when I can be scalped by taxes and astronomical inflation in order to support my parents’ generation in their old age. (I don’t want to retire myself, I just want to work hard to pay off my student loan by the age of ninety.)

I don’t have any practical advice about the economy, needless to say, because nobody does.

But in hard times, I like to remember the classics.

In Pride and Prejudice, the Bennett sisters struggle to find rich husbands who will enable them to maintain their privileged, entitled lifesyles, and eventually they do. In the meantime, they enjoy many fun country pursuits, such as long walks, horseback rides, time spent with the family, dance parties, and tea.

In Jane Eyre, impoverished, hard-luck orphan Jane fights her way from an abusive childhood to coveted jobs as schoolteacher and governess, eventually inherits some money with which she is generous, and marries a rich man with an ugly face, a rocking body (except that he is missing one hand), and a kind heart. Jane too enjoys the simple things in life, including gray clothing and love affairs with married men.

Or think of Don Quixote, who goes crazy from too much reading, comes to believe in magic, goes on a quest, and fights windmills after mistaking them for giants. He enjoys the friendship of a faithful sidekick, plenty of sunshine and red wine, many adventures, and unrequited love for farm girls. But his story ends sadly when he dies of grief after losing touch with the happy world of his imagination.

The books don’t focus on the economic climate but I think we can read between the lines here and take a lesson from Jane Eyre: If you don’t get invited to dances, or if you do get invited but when you arrive people make fun of your drab clothing, at least you can retreat into books until you marry someone rich.

Aka Velvet Elvis.

That’s what I’ll be painting on this canvas, or rather, stretched velvet.

Netflix suggested watching the Muppets Movie, so I did.

I was kind of surprised since this does not seem to reflect my usual watching habits at all (action movies). But it’s so crazy, it’s actually pretty funny. I loved it!

Location: Dunkin Donuts, Roanoke, Virginia

Overweight customer: “How much is in a half- dozen? Is it 12?”

Whoa!

I dreamed last night that our old house in Virginia had been remodeled. The remodeling job was really crazy and the sedate blue Colonial had turned into in a hot yellow- orange stuccoed place with weird patterns of windows and a shiny purple and green sculptural glass roof.

Anyway, so I drew a picture of the before and after. Why not? While I was finishing it up, a ladybug visited and walked through a blob of wet ink and then went on a short journey around the drawing.

Here’s a closeup:

Today we went to Best Buy. It was fun playing with the iMac.

We also went to the Thomas Kinkade store.

Surprisingly, I couldn’t hate the Thomas Kinkade paintings. (It could have been because yesterday I screwed up my back at the gym and today I was feeble. Not really because I am getting old, it WAS Friday the 13th and I am constantly getting exercise related injuries.) The paintings are superficial and too pretty and as Mike pointed out, they are full of contrived rather than genuine emotions. But they do have some nice areas.

And sometimes they work.

For example, Nascar Thunder. This painting works. It’s over the top with the colors and the drawing is weak, but I like the subject matter.

You can get a copy of Nascar Thunder from Thomas Kinkade’s website for $795.

Today I went to Home Depot at 8:30 AM to buy some Masonite to paint on. The problem is Masonite comes in 8 foot by 4 foot sheets so they have to cut it for you at the store. They don’t let customers use the saws and you cannot get around this because you have to type in a code before the saw will turn on.

I had forgotten how crazy the Home Depot workers are. They were absent from the Masonite-cutting area so I had to track them down near the paint section. One fortyish guy in coveralls and one of those orange Home Depot vest/apron things told me that they “don’t cut Masonite, because the saws don’t work on concrete.” I politely replied that Masonite is a kind of hardboard. Eventually I discovered the Masonite-cutting guy was in the bathroom and was expected to be there for the next 30 minutes, so instead a lunatic cashier attempted to cut my Masonite. It quickly became apparent that he had no experience with the power saw.

It didn’t work out at all. The resulting bits of Masonite were all the wrong sizes and shapes, and they did not possess any right angles. The crazy worker tried to convince me to buy them anyway, employing various passive-aggressive sales tactics revolving around the central idea that at least he had TRIED to cut the Masonite correctly. I declined and stumbled, shellshocked, from Home Depot. I went straight to Lowe’s (Lowe’s does not carry Masonite in this area) and bought pre-cut hardwood panels to paint on. More expensive but much more restful.