Wednesday, November 27, 2013

The Festival Of Lighted Turkeys

[From the Book of Faces: "Well, it was still early on Thanksgiving Eve when we got our Turkey Day Tree up and decorated. Of course, this year, we also put little potato latkes and menorahs on it. Feel free to submit pictures if you have also put your Turkey Day Tree up already."]

 
 It won't happen again for more than 76,000 years, so I figured I might as well have fun with it.
 

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Black Friday? Bah, Humbug!

I hate Black Friday. The very idea of it, never mind the actual thing itself. It tears us from the peace, quiet, and, yes, thankfulness of Thanksgiving, and hurls us willy-nilly into the "shuffling madness of the locomotive breath" that is the Holiday Shopping Season. There is something fundamentally wrong with our economy if even our largest Retailers depend on Christmas gift buying for up to 40% of their yearly receipts. It makes them look a lot more like souvenir Shoppes at a Tourist resort than soundly-run enterprises.
 
Desperate for Holiday $$ or not, why couldn't they slowly amp things up by having 'Light Gray Friday', followed by 'Gray Saturday', and then 'Really Dark Gray Sunday'? I know this makes me sound like a Grinch, but I would very much like to see a social compact (or a harsh Law, to be brutally honest) that there be no Christmas Decorations or Music in stores until the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Not In This House

Cara Terez posted this picture of her Father, Kevin Brooks, with the caption, "Dad, festive tree killer."
 
 
Which reminded me: At the Storytelling Potluck this past Sunday, Pepper Green said emphatically, "We don't kill trees in this house!" To which I replied, "Nor in my house, either. We kill them outside, and then drag the bodies in." Sounds like that was what was happening here...
 
(Please note that I  do NOT actually go around chopping down trees, NOR have I ever put up a Christmas Tree.)
 

Monday, November 11, 2013

Questionably Content

On Saturday, I went to hear Cartoonist Jeph Jacques talk at Brandeis. He draws Questionable Content, a wildly successful Web Comic. He is not only quite a character, but also one of a handful of people who can entirely support themselves by doing so. It was in the common room of Usen Castle, which has to be one of the coolest-looking College Dormitories ever.
 
Usen Castle (an actual Dormitory at Brandeis University)
 
Larger view of Usen Castle
 
Cartoonist Jeph Jacques (and the young woman from Usen who organized the event)

 
Me standing in line to say "Thank You" to Jeph.
 
Me, still waiting in line.
 

 

Sunday, November 10, 2013

A Sad Story

Jen 'n' Berry, makers of Premium Ice Cream, have come out with the "Euphori-Lock" Pint Protector: 
It's not only a combination lock for your pricey frozen dessert, it has a morally-uplifting slogan as well: "There's no u in my pint"! This is apparently meant to reassure you that, if you did ever leave your apartment, your "Okey Dokey Artichokey" would be safe from your roommate (who, if they're at all like you, presumably has no self-control whatsoever.) But, alas, if that were true, this is what would happen about five minutes after you clumped down the stairs:
 
 

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Felinus Imperatus

You gotta love this Kitten -- he reminds me of Charles Laughton as Henry VIII:
(Original photo courtesy of Nicole Fortier.)

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

The Hobyahs

[From the Book of Faces, Nov. 5:
Anne Crockett Home from storytelling where Mike did a great feature that included stories of a flood, and a tv-less childhood. Some good laughs and poignant too. He finished with an unusual scary story that I thought was his invention but apparently was not. Hmm. Other people think like that too? Weird. It was a nice night in any event.]
 
(Me in my Storytelling Shirt, which was
 hand-painted by Annie Crockett using acrylic paints.)

The scary story in question was The Hobyahs, which goes back a long ways, and has many, many versions. In a lot of them the dog, Turpey, is subjected to unspeakable abuse. In mine (and I don't know why, it's not like I'm a dog person), he gets to experience far more character development than anyone else in the story. This tale is like a verbal Rorschach test--it is composed of a bunch of simple, but very unsettling elements, and everyone who tells it is clearly compelled to arrange them in a different way that reflects how they feel. You can listen to my version of this Story here: MDC Live Stories.
 

Monday, November 4, 2013

A Limerick For Laura

The Limerick is supposedly the only form of verse native to the English Language. It is also noted for how easily it lends itself to bawdiness (to put it mildly). As a result, not that many people get to be immortalized via clean Limericks, as they're apparently much harder to compose. My friend, the inimitable Laura Packer, was not feeling well, so I came up with this in her honor:

Laura P. of Kansas City
Has a bad Cold--'tis a pity,
For a Rhinovirus
Is never desirous,
And the results are not pretty.