Paint project

This is a graphic work that Mary and I collaborated on by email over a year ago and posted to Silk Creek Portal. Mary created the basic artwork and then I got involved.

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It was a study in how altering the eyes of an image slightly can have a great deal of impact.

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In Paint, by zooming in and altering an image pixel by pixel you can engineer artistic effects. It takes time and effort but the program is something anyone can access.

lolcat

The lolcat thing might have peaked some while back but it's cute. For the uninitiated lolcat is the secret language of felines. It's got devotees who have translated the Bible into cat lingo. (God is "Ceiling Cat," derived from a photo of a pussy paw dipping down in consecration from a suspended ceiling.) A cat is a "kitteh". Food is generalized as "cheezeburgerz". There are certain established conventions in lolcat, but if you just want some fun, you can make up your own.

Petunia's Pals

PLEASE go visit http://petuniablogg.blogspot.com/

Petunia is a wonderful person with wonderful photos there. You might even learn a bit of Norwegian!

Mallow Fellows

Petunia of Norway says she takes pictures just for fun, and this shot proves it!

And The Band Played On

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Sometimes things, esp when I'm involved, move slowly. You get diverted, sidetracked, whatever, and I'm sure you all know what sort of thing I'm talking about.

At any rate, these pictures were last summer at a benefit concert for "Love, INC", a ministry of the First Presbyterian Church in my hometown of Jackson. Long enough ago that I've got a full beard now, but you can see that we guys are truly handsome and loveable. Love In The Name of Christ (Love INC) sponsors various relief supplies and help to needy people in our area. A WORTHY CAUSE!

The Holy Jean Band is due for another benefit concert on January 24th (a Sunday) that we plan to record on CD so that the audience can get a copy. Goal: raise $2000.

Not pictured here but joining us will be Emily, our new singer, Ted, our drummer, and Bert and Bea Furman, good friends. AND MORE... stay tuned.

Dead Man Gawking

Santa is DEAD. It's official now. Photographic proof has surfaced on the net, and here it is.

Unlike the '70's proclamation that God had passed away (because of declining church attendance) the demise of St. Nicholas was not caused by lack of interest in the holiday or even the recent decline in per capita Yuletide spending in the US to less than $364 (anything less than one dollar per day being the poverty level).

No, Virginia, Santa was a victim of his success, not failure. After approximately 1100 years of roaming the globe philanthropically filling stockings and dispensing cautionary lumps of anthracite, Nick was licked by technology, or the decline thereof.

As we all are aware, Chinese manufacturers have cornered 99.999% of the world market in Christmas holiday lighting. The inside story of this is sad in itself.

Employing slave elf labor was never Santa's style, so along about 1995 it became economically impossible for North Pole LLC to compete, and their last reliable string of multicolored bulbs was shipped out. Subsequently the Polar Ice Pack began melting, and the handwriting was on the wall. All remaining operations were translocated to Boca Raton, FL, and 75% of the elves went into retirement near Ft. Myers. By 2007 NP International's total output consisted of driedel tops and knitted Kitten Mitts, intended to allow domestic shorthair housecats the ability to survive in the wild in January.

In 2008 production of even this dubious moneymaker was halted by legal action, the Florida Supreme Court holding that "kitten mitts" was a copyright infringement against "Kitchen Mitts Conglomerated", a wholly-owned subsidiary of "Everything and ANYTHING Kitchen-Related," a Hong Kong holding company with damn good lawyers.

Holiday spending peaked in 2009 when the last domestically owned American dollar passed to the Chinese. The holiday which Santa built from little more than a reindeer and ruddy nose had been pushed to the final tipping point long feared by some but ignored by too many. We all know what resulted. A worldwide economic financial disaster.

The Chinese, of course, took over everything remaining of the holiday not already in their grasp, retaining all rights to the name, which was modified to ChrisMart Day and moved to September 25th.

Santa was put out to pasture, ie, made homeless, since his Workshop was now floating through oil slicks in the North Sea. Rumors persist that Japanese whale fishermen sank it with explosive harpoons but those remain unconfirmed.

Santa drifted from city to city and town to town, pathetically picking up litter and stuffing it into his suit as padding to replace the pounds of jolly he'd lost on his quest for spiritual guidance. "Show me the LIGHT! Show me the LIGHT!" he would moan, bending down time and time again for a McCheesy wrapper or a BurgerWop box.

God listens.

Santa found himself in the lower Michigan town called JACKSON, apparently drawn to the state by the mitten shape of its Lower Peninsula on Google Earth. Lights weren't working on the inherently defective Chinese-made street decorations. Santa tried to fix them and died from electrocution.

He's finally at Peace, but not on Earth.

Photo by: KAT KULCHINSKI