Beastiesbeastiesbeasties « design-newyork.com

Archive for the ‘Beastiesbeastiesbeasties’ Category

Belgium for Thanksgiving 2012, Part 4.

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

Europe sure does love its dead things. If I didn’t know better, I would think I was in Montana, what with all the mounted heads and bearskin rugs and antlers all over. Everywhere, all over.

I kept begging The Moomins for things. The answer was always no.

“Can I have this wet bowl of tiny horns?”

“How about two hares playing cards?”

I liked this restaurant tableau. “Come, come read our menu and enjoy our two pheasants fighting and a moldy-looking squirrel with a nut in its mouth!”

One night I passed the store of my dreams. They had the best dead things I’ve seen in a while. It’s good that both times I walked past it the store was closed, otherwise I would be the proud owner of many a piece of corpse-art.

Something else I saw at night: the real name of The Smurfs. Belgium is all about comics. They love ’em. I saw this charmer on the side of a building.

Is the Manneken Pis peeing beer? Or is the man too drunk to know that he’s drinking pee? I thought about that for a while. I regret that decision.

I walked past a magazine and comic-book shop one night and that is where I saw this.

Les Schtroumpfs. That’s a mouthful.

The flower shops in Belgium are amazing. They don’t just show the flowers off, they do whole window design statements with them. We came across this one in Tongeren. It had fabric lilies draped over the doorway with tiny led lights in them that lit up.

They had cascades of rose petals sliding down the window and itty-bitty bouquets of stripey roses at the base.

And they had a Saluki guarding the door and being adorable and lanky. Not actually related to the flower shop’s awesome flowers per se, but delightful nonetheless.

I made friends with a dog on one of the trains. It’s owner was looking out the window and she was trying to explain to the dog to join her in looking out the window because trains were going by. I tried to help by pointing my finger (“Look, dog! Sights to see!”), but the dog licked my finger because maybe there was a delicious treat on the end (there was not). Eventually the dog figured it out, but it took a while. It was a very sweet dachshund.

Another thing Belgium is famous for is chocolate and desserts. Hoo boy, did I see some drool-worthy sweeties, especially in Bruges. The Moomins insisted that we go to Bruges because she said it’s her fairy land. Now that I’ve been there and looked around, I can’t really argue with that.

They also had a charming Grand Place. No sculpture with a dude flinging a hand and lungfish and skull-dragons, so this will not be my top Grand Place, but still good.

According to Cricket when we were in London, we saw a ton of brick buildings with stars on their exteriors. Cricket told me that these are not just decorative, they actually help hold up the building. In Bruges, I saw some buildings that had those but they also told the date the building was built.

Anyway, sweets. Holy moly, so delicious and magical. Look at those loaves of marzipan and nougat. And the chocolate displays. They put a fruit tart all alone in a window like it’s a diamond tennis bracelet. Mmmmmmm.

There is an ancient candy that you can buy there called a cuberdon. It looks like a little frosted cone. By the way, by “ancient” I don’t mean they bury them for sixty years, I mean the recipe is mad old. Just clarifying. The authentic color and flavor is purple/raspberry, but they come in other flavors too. And therefore I had to try them.

(In that last photo they call them “squirrel noses”.) Cuberdons are super-sweet syrup which have been poured in those pointy-shaped molds and left to dry for five to six days. That’s what forms the leathery “skin” on the outside. When you bite into them, the syrup glorps out a little bit, and it is delicious but exceptionally sweet, so one cuberdon is plenty. And because they’re time and temperature-sensitive they are not found outside of Belgium. I looked up buying them here and you can’t.

There was also a old-fashioned candy-maker’s shop, and I walked by they started making candy! Right in front of me! I was so happy. I took pictures of the shape-maker devises in the window.

First, the two men pour molten hot sugar/water/glucose/flavoring on a cool metal table with square bars to prevent it from rolling off the table. Because it was cherry-flavored, they added red coloring and a bit of white coloring in the corner. And then they mixed and mixed and mixed.

After waiting for the stuff to gel up a bit, one of them took out the biggest shears ever and cut the white part from the red part.

After the shears, they put on nuclear oven mitts and attempted to shape the candy while it was still hot and malleable. Until I watched these guys, I never realized how much upper body strength is required to make this. You’ve got to heave the enormous cauldron full of sugary lava over to a metal table and pour it all on there without getting it all over yourself because you know it ain’t coming off ever, kiss your forearms goodbye. Then after it sets a bit, you have to wrangle this and it’s sticky as hell and hot and twenty pounds and it keeps being affected by gravity so you have to stay on top of it. It should be part of the P90X regimen. Impressive.

So the guys made a couple of long shapes and took it over to some silicone mats to assemble the design.

Oh look, a heart! That one guy started pulling and pulling until it got about a finger’s width thick and then broke it off, and sho’ nuff there’s a little heart in there. Awww.

They turned on a machine of rollers that helped in the reducing-the-width-thing and banged off foot-long pieces of this candy, which they then broke into bite-size pieces. I bought some. I normally don’t care for cherry-flavored candy, but it’s not overpoweringly flavored so it wasn’t like cough drops.

Finally, when we were in Brussels we walked down the fanciest street they got, I guess Fifth Avenue would be a good analogy. We walked past a shop that had what appeared to be giant hippos made from clay or maybe metal. When we walked inside The Moomins and I realized that they were made of chocolate. OMG, that’s fantastic. There was a sign that said Please Do Not Touch, but I was like, do they have a policy on licking? I did not lick, but I definitely thought about it.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Random Art Bloggery, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

The Epic Trek.

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

Oh hey everyone, did y’all notice that storm that blew through here? Sandy, I think they called it? Wasn’t that just a blasty-blast? I am considering moving to the Australian outback and living in a hole in the ground where it is nice and dry and never rains. They do that in the Outback, you know. When I was in high school I saw “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” and there’s a mining town where it’s really warm and people pop up like moles at night from their cool subterranean dwellings to drink beer and loiter. I bet they don’t wake up in the morning to branches everywhere and bleeping disconnected phones and news footage of an entire roller coaster sitting in the ocean.

So here’s my saga: I was sitting in bed eating (because what else are you going to do right after a hurricane that is also a tornado/flash flood/biblical plague?) on Tuesday evening when I got a text from my boss. “How R U”, it said. I, unwisely, said I was fine and I had electricity and internet and phones. He said, “Please contact M. and find out if you can help on this pitch” so I texted my co-worker M. and D. got involved and then all of a sudden C. and B. were contacting me asking me if I could help with this pitch, but I didn’t have a laptop so all my files and fonts were at work. We all agreed that it was a dick move that the potential client wouldn’t change their meeting from Friday to a later date because, you know, the East Coast is so very damp right now, but they wouldn’t and people were flipping out. It became abundantly clear that I needed to go into work on Wednesday, where we had electricity and phones but no internet. There were no trains, no subways, tree branches everywhere, wires down, bridges closed, etc. I called my co-worker Nessa who lives in Queens and asked if I could stay with her, and then I called my dad and had him drive me to Queens. Nessa was thoroughly delightful and showed rom-coms to me. I saw “How To Lose A Man In 10 Days” and I’m ashamed to say that I liked it. Who knew Kate Hudson was funny? Anyway, I asked how we would get into the city and she said, “Oh, we can walk over the Queensboro Bridge. It’ll only take 45 minutes.” I found out later that this was a LIE.

We woke up at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday and started walking with the rest of Astoria and Long Island City. It looked like a mass exodus from an abandoned nuclear wasteland to the one town with a functioning Wal-Mart that has three cans of beans still untainted by radiation.

We walked and walked and finally got to the Queenboro Bridge which was awash with a-hole bicyclists. Yes, I understand that you cycle to work every day, Mr. Bike-Man, but there’s a ton more people on your bike path today, so you think you could stop fring-fringing and yelling at everyone and just walk your bike across the bridge like a civilized member of society? Maybe?

At one point an ancient crusty man who looked like a sailor from a crab boat hollered in Nessa’s ear, “ON YOUR RRRRRIGHT!!!” in a thick Scottish accent and Nessa just snapped. “I WILL PUSH YOU OFF YOUR BIKE, SIR.” Once we got to the Manhattan side and sauntered down Park Avenue we saw a Rottweiler dressed as a skunk (it was Halloween, remember) take a giant mushy dump in front of an apartment building and the owner, a tall slim blonde woman on her phone, made absolutely no attempt to pick it up which caused the doorman in front of the building to chastise her and she ignored him because poop-scooping was beneath her, the entitled snotbag. The whole interaction reminded me how much I hate everyone (except for the skunk-weiler, he seemed to be free of fault). Finally, after walking for 5.3 miles, we got to work and about twenty minutes after I got there I got a phone call that the meeting had been postponed for two weeks. All this for nothing. I grumpily pottered around on my computer organizing files and whatnot, and about three hours later Nessa and I decided, ah, the hell with it, let’s go home. Maybe we can get on a bus. And then we saw the lines for the buses.

Yeah, no bus for us. Since the sun was getting low in the sky and it was chilly and windy, and because I figured I would be walking for another hour-and-a-half, I put on my extremely warm and extremely stupid-looking American Eagle bonnet with knitted horns on it that I kept at my office to startle interns.

As Nessa and I were trudging over to the East Side we tried to cab it for a little while, but that didn’t go too great. Our driver tried to rip us off twice and we were getting car-sick from the stop and go and stop and go and rinse and repeat. So we walked onward. And encountered The Barrier.

I think it’s there to keep bicyclists and walkers from wandering right out into the street. We had a choice: we could walk aaaaaaaaall the way down the block, around The Barrier and aaaaaaaaaall the way back, or we could just climb over this thing like everyone else. I was all for the walking option, but Nessa is sporty and had no problem hopping over this. So I decided to make a go of it. And a horrible-looking go it was. I am many things, but athletic is not one of them. I get winded taking the elevator. In between laughing at me, Nessa took pictures.

Nessa promised that we could have these really good milkshakes at a local joint as soon as we got to Astoria. I felt bad for that bartender. We dragged our sorry tired selves into this nice establishment and the bartender asked us what we want, assuming that we were adults and would want adult beverages. Nope. Milkshakes. Strawberry for me, Salted Caramel for Nessa. Make ’em snappy. Did I mention that at this point I’m still wearing my Hagrid-Hat and Nessa is wearing cat ears and a sombrero on her backpack for no reason whatsoever? And we’re drinking milkshakes at a bar? We are very cool. And I didn’t even feel guilty about this tasty treat since I had walked over ten miles that day. Woo, my thighs were tight for the rest of the evening. Every time I got up off the couch to go to the bathroom, I creaked like a haunted attic.

The next day some of the subways were running, so we took the subway in and sang a big chunk of the time. Harmonizing stuff. I considered putting out my hat to collect change. When we got to work we had email and internet so work actually got done and Metro-North was partially running, so I thanked Nessa for putting me up for two days (thank you, Nessa) and walked to Grand Central to catch a train back to White Plains. It’s still electricity-starved in New York. On 37th and 6th, when I looked left I saw this:

But when I looked right, I saw THIS:

Dark. Dark and terrifying.

Anyway, for me it’s all over now, everything’s back to normal-ish and I feel extremely lucky to have had no permanent damage to myself and my possessions and my loved ones. I got off easy on this one.

Two unrelated photos: Astoria is predominantly Greek? Don’t believe me? This picture really captures the Greekiness, I think.

And while sitting on the couch in the evenings I got to pet Gizzy, my second favorite cat in the whole world. She’s extremely fine-boned but she has a big udder hangin’ from her midsection, so she looks like an elongated beanbag. She’s a love-monster and she lets me pick her up and rub on her udder. Great cat.

Posted in Advertising, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, New York, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | 4 Comments »

Hovawarts, Kooikerhondjes and Stabyhouns – Meet the Breeds 2012.

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Every year now at the Javits Center in Manhattan, the AKC and the feline equivalent of the AKC has a thing called Meet the Breeds. They have cats and dogs of various shapes and sizes. You can meet them and pet them and learn about them, it’s delightful. Each creature gets a booth and the owners/breeders make it look like a middle-school science fair. There are photos and costumes and fun facts posted everywhere. The first booth my co-worker, Nessa, and I came across was the Siberian cat. The lady was dressed in authentic Russian garb. The cat did not seem to care about this.

And in the front entrance there was a woman walking a Saluki, a breed of dog native to Saudi Arabia. Not only was the lady totally pimped out, but the dog was dressed as what I perceived as a belly dancer.

At the toyger booth the woman had dingle-dongles of tigers on her head. BTW, toygers are gorgeous. I would love to have a couple of those hanging around my abode.

My favorite kitty at this thing was the gray striped Turkish Angora. He wouldn’t really hold still for a photo, but take my word for it, he was exquisite.

There was a Havanese cat who really loved his feathered toy on a stick. Like, really loved it. In this picture, I’m holding over my head. In the second picture it’s off to the right. Look at the intensity in this cat’s eyes. He wants to kill that thing so bad. DEATH TO STICK.

After lovin’ on the kitties, we headed over to the dogs. The dog section is always substantially larger than the cat section, probably because most cats look vaguely like cats and are cat-shaped, but dogs vary so much. I saw this chart and it pretty much sums up how it works for most people.

There were four new breeds that I noticed. One was a French dog that I forgot to take a picture of (it was scruffy and blonde), but the other three I managed to catalog. There was the Kooikerhondje (I’m going to assume that’s a Dutch breed):

The Stabyhoun:

And the Hovawart, which I loved. I asked the lady about them. First of all, how am I expected not to call them a Hogawart? I mean, really? Anyway, they’re from Germany, they’ve been around since the 1200s, and they live to be about sixteen, which is unheard of in a dog as big as that (they’re very big). That’s due to excellent breeding and rigid record-keeping by the Germans. Say what you want about them, but the Germans make a great dog. The dog I petted was a total sweetie and crazy-soft all over, not just his ears like most dogs. I heart Hovawarts.

There were a stellar bunch of big dogs like the Leonberger, the Irish Wolfhound, the Akita and the Borzoi (my favoritest type of dog in the whole world).

As I said it’s extremely common to dress up for people to both decorate their booths and put on costumes to represent their breed’s land or origin or most notable trait or whatever. This man dressed as a monk said he owned five St. Bernards. I can only imagine what his food costs must be every month.

The Newfoundland booth was storm-oriented. Newfies are water dogs, mostly used for rescue. They have webbed paws.

This is the Rhodesian Ridgeback booth. And here is a young Ridgeback giving someone the sideways-eye.

I thought the Chow Chow booth was the dopest. Except for the Brush Script on the front, but that looked like it was done by a little kid, so I’m going to let it slide.

I imagine the dogs get bored after a while. This Tervuren was just chilling out. He’s probably tired from being mistaken for a German Shepherd all day.

And these Scottish Deerhounds gave up.

This Weimeraner is giving a high-five, but you can see in his eyes his thoughts are elsewhere. Perhaps thinking of a love from long ago. Or meaty treats.

The were a ton of wee dogs as well. There was this tiny Chihuahua puppy.

And these Yorkshire Terriers.

Also this Shih Tzu and Pekinese and King Charles Spaniel. All soft and sweet and friendly.

But the cutest (translation: the ones I was most tempted to shove under my shirt and hightail it out of there with) were the Pomeranians. Oh Ancient Crone, how I envy you and your super-adorable doggies.

The Corgi Queen was there again this year. I love that lady.

The Saluki booth was fabu.

The Schipperke, being a boat dog from Holland, was wearing a little sailor hat. The other one was wearing a lei… because it was on vacation, or something.

The whippet dressed as a witch was a total darling. A Witchet, if you will.

The piece de resistance of the experience, in my opinion, was the following:

– An ancient Chinese Crested
– With no teeth
– Whose tongue is too big for its mouth
– Wearing a green sweater
– Falling asleep.

Chinese Crested dogs look… intriguing to begin with.

I learned that the hairless dogs are more prone to tooth loss because whatever gene creates the lack of hair also affects the tooth strength. You learn new things every day.

So it was awesome and I’m totally going next year. I’m going to take Snorth with me whether she says okay or not. Snorth, we’re gonna go pet things next year! Put it on your calendar! We goin’!

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, New York, Stuff | 1 Comment »

Two weird violent comedies I saw recently.

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

I saw Seven Psychopaths. Ohhhhhh, it was so close to being good. So close. It felt like amazing actors were acting out a first draft of what would eventually be a really great script. I loved Sam Rockwell because, hey, Sam Rockwell is super-fantastic, and Colin Farrell is a sexy beast, and Christopher Walken is terrific. Specific scenes are amazing as mini-films, but the film as a unit isn’t great. Some thoughts:

1. Christopher Walken wears a suit the whole time, and when he walks he has a jaunty pop in his step. I kept waiting for him to break into the Fatboy Slim dance. It really looked like he was gonna at certain points.

2. Speaking of Christopher Walken, there’s a scene where all three leads are driving around – Farrell and Rockwell are in the front seat and Walken is in the back seat sleeping. The guys in the front are talking but I couldn’t listen to them because Walken is all bony and freaky and his mouth is hanging open and his muscles are all slack, it’s utterly terrifying. It’s like trying to pay attention to a conversation while the chick from The Ring is chilling in the shot, being all “Howdy!” and whatnot.

3. If you play a drinking game based on how many times the words “psycho” or “psychopath” is said, you would be drunk in no time. It got to the point where the word lost its meaning for me. They could have said “crazy” or “unbalanced” or “mentally ill”, any number of alternatives were available.

And now I’m watching Super. That’s the name of the film. Super. It came out on DVD recently. It’s about a guy who loses everything and decides to become a superhero. He whacks bad people in the head with a pipe wrench. It’s like a comic book (or graphic novel, if you’re cool) (which I am not) come to life. It was very weird and violent, like 300 taking place in suburbia where everyone drives Buicks.

1. Rainn Wilson plays one of the most socially awkward human beings I’ve ever seen. It would have really easy for him to go into “Non-Believable Dork” area, but he doesn’t. I have a new appreciation for Mr. Wilson and his acting abilities.

2. When Ellen Page tries to be sexy it does not work. She sounds like someone trying to be sexy after watching copious amounts of porn. “Women should moan like this” kind of thing. It doesn’t help that she looks twelve.

3. I really liked the way they used Adobe AfterEffects in this film. Did I mention I’m teaching myself AfterEffects? I am. I had forgotten how irritating it is to learn new things (you just don’t know stuff!). Anyway, instead of having normal film-style flashbacks, they did all kinds of nifty animations.

4. Oh hello, Kevin Bacon. Didn’t know you were in this. Look at you, being all awesome.

5. Wow, the last half is grotesque and rough. I was not ready. It went from weird and charming to heroic to plain horrifying. I’m very upset now.

My final review on both films: they are both the best films ever because they have soft sweet rabbits in them. The end.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers. | No Comments »

A new purse, finally. And other things.

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

The last time I painted a purse was over a year ago and since I was working on many other projects I never got around to making a new one and the jelly one was decomposing like a mummy in a horror film. This one:

The metal tab things had ripped off and I had spilled all kinds of delicious foods on it and the strap was totally frayed, etc. The time had come, and gone, and circled back around again, and I couldn’t keep carrying it because my lip gloss kept falling out of the holes. They discontinued this particular style purse, but before they did I bought the last fifty the factory had. Alas, about ten are gray, but the rest are this appalling Pepto pink. So now I have a stack of revolting pink purses in my closet. I took one and dyed it so it was a grayish lavender. Then I drew a horned beetle on it and used Pantone markers to give the impression of a shadow in rich blues. It looks adorbs.

Two other things: there’s this thing in fashion in the last few years where you rip t-shirts in intricate patterns and then you tie up the shreds with complex knots. It looks a bit like the lanyard bracelets you made at summer camp. I was pretty meh about the whole thing until I was walking through Times Square the other day and this chick had this neat skull ripped in the back of her shirt. That was pretty cool.

The third thing: Publicis New York merged with another agency, Kaplan Thaler Group and now it’s Publicis Kaplan Thaler. In 2013 we will be joining up in a building on Broadway and 52nd, and recently I went there. It’s a nice enough office building, but something in the elevator bay is going to bother me each and every day when I work there.

Uuuugh all the letters are mashed together and then there’s that giant gap why why??? It’s so crappy. One late night I may snap and go out there with an X-acto knife and handle my business (and get fired, but at least the letter spacing will be corrected).

Posted in Advertising, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, My Art/Design/Business, Nature, New York, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff | No Comments »

I was going to get things done, and then… cats.

Sunday, September 30th, 2012

I’ve seen a lot of cats in my day. Lately, however, the internet has coughed up (not unlike a hairball) three particularly engaging cats that I cannot stop looking at. I want to work at my job and clean my house, but I can’t because I have to stare at these things for hours on end. It can’t be healthy, this addiction to people’s pets that I have never met.

First cat!!

Venus the Chimera Cat

She has a half-black face and half-tabby face which is unusual, but what makes it even better is the green eye and the blue eye. It really looks like two cats fused together. Bonus: she’s full-grown and five pounds so she’s wee! And her owner says Venus is super-nice.

Second cat!!

Tard the Grumpy Cat

Awww, Tard. I don’t know what’s going on with her. She just has a case of the perma-grumps. She is also extremely wee. Her sister Pokey has a similarly weird face and body, so the owner thinks they are some kind of dwarf cat, but honestly, I don’t care. I just want to watch Tard play all day.

Here’s two videos of Ms. Grumpy in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INscMGmhmX4&

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-1g3SDswGA&

Third cat!!

Colonel Meow

I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS CAT. I WANT IT TO BE IN MY LIFE ALL THE TIME. Every time I see this thing, Stravinsky and Moussorgsky and Prokofiev play in the background, so epic is this animal. I may be driven to make a shirt that says Team Colonel Meow.

You can friend all these cats on Facebook. I totally did.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Teh Intarwebz | 2 Comments »

Bloomsburg Fair 2012.

Friday, September 28th, 2012

Five years ago I had complained to my co-worker A. that there were no state fairs in the New York area, the kind you hear about with the butter sculptures and deep-fried beer. He mentioned that three hours away where he’s from there is exactly that. So I went and it was everything a girl could want and more. Here’s the blog entry on that. I wanted to take my parents but every year when it would roll around I would be busy or my parents would be out of the country, whatever. But this year my dad had nothing going on, so we went. I had a great time. My father had a slightly less great time due to his disinterest in livestock and livestock-related activities. But still, a fun time was had. Since it was pretty much the same as last time (fried foods? check. tractors? check.) I’m not going to give a big ole overview again.

Yay fair!

As we came in, we skedaddled past the vendors selling threshers and tillers and backhoes to the livestock-judging area. We saw the standards – cows, horses, pigs, sheep. But some of the goats were new to me. These are small velvety goats. They looked really soft. These two were snuggling.

This one was napping. Look at him. Do you not wish to climb into his paddock and nap laying against him? I bet you do.

Now, every goat I’ve ever seen has big floppity ears. But because humans cannot stop themselves from screwing around with genetics, I saw this goat. And he was not alone. There were others like him.

Little finger-ears. What’s up with that, breeders? Is that a thing we need? I’m going to go with “no”.

There was the rabbit and chicken-judging area where I saw two bunnies that I seriously considered shoving into my shirt and fleeing off into the night with. They had great complicated titles too. They are “Lilac Mini-Rex Doe Jr.s”. They were wee and softy-soft and I wanted to have them in my life. Especially the second one who was starting to fall asleep but looks like she’s consumed with rage. ANGEE BUNNEE (really just drowzee bunnee).

There were a few new and different beastie-activities to engage in this year, and you bet your sweet patoot I went to all of them. In one giant shed there was a partitioned-off area where for $2.00 you could frolick with butterflies. The two dollars went to the local hospital, so I was totally going. Charity AND insects? I’m in. They handed me a Q-tip soaked in blue Gatorade (really) and sent me past two screen doors (to prevent escapees). And then there were a gazillion monarchs and other like butterflies fluttering around.

You know how when you go to butterfly enclosures, the butterflies never land on you and you leave dejected and disappointed? Not here. There were two people at the exit, and you had to turn around in a circle so they could make sure that none of the lil’ flappers were clinging on. I was looking at two little mothy guys when – whump! – a big hefty monarch landed on my finger and startled me. He was the biggest chubbiest monarch I have ever seen.

Then another one took a liking to my pants. He landed on my pant leg and did that open, close, open, close thing they do. I didn’t want to startle him, so I dragged that leg around slowly behind me like I was a butterfly-encrusted zombie. “Ehhhhhhhhhhh, braaaaaaainssss… and pollen.”

Then further on there was a “pet a fawn for $3.00” area, and I was in there before you could say “potential to catch lime disease”. They were so sweet. I plopped down on a hay bale and commenced lovin’ on this little guy. Look at those eyelashes.

There were two smaller fawns in there, and one was all white. The non-albino one was all about licking, so he happily clippety-clopped over to me and started suckling on my fingers. Their mouths feel almost identical to ours. They have sharpish bottom front teeth, and they have a fleshy tongue as opposed to cats and dogs, who have flat tongues. It was very sweet. Other people offered to feed them milk, which seemed to sate the little fellers.

The other cool animal-thing I saw was on the opposite side. I’ve seen many horses before (like this one wearing neon green shoes):

but as I headed over to the stables on the other side, I saw two of the biggest horses I’ve ever seen in my life. Huge. HUGE. They are called Percherons, and they are draft horses, like Clydesdales. Twelve hands high, 1,500 to 2,500 pounds. Humongous. Here’s a picture of one of them. I thought his pattern was lovely.

And here are two people standing next to Percherons to give you a sense of scale. BIG HORSES.

After thoroughly examining all the beasties, my father and I headed over to the Horticulture and Home Arts and Crafts judging area. They had a flower-arranging area that blew my mind, and I’ll tell you why. I felt like I had wandered into 1972. The building was all wood paneling, there was a giant clock made of carnations in the center of the room, and Lawrence Welk-style music was piped in. Along both walls were cut, dried and potted flowers and plants for judging. Apparently the arranged-flower theme this year had a time motif (hence the carnation clock). There was every plant imaginable. I took photos of the clovers, the bonsais, the cactii and the dahlias. Look at the giant blooms in the center.

Also, whenever The Moomins and I buy a fern, we love it and care for it and give it food and light and water and it dies. Look at these guys. I am so jealous.

But what really made it feel like 1972 were the organized themed displays. Like the canning and jarring area. Anyone notice the open bible as part of the display?

Every fiber of my being wanted to yell out, “I got your implements of husbandry RIGHT HERE,” but I did not because I am classy.

The clincher, though, was this. Take it all in. The font on the signs. The scalloped, off-white display niches. And, of course, the Phyllis Diller daisy arrangement.

And there was a ton of produce. Everything you could imagine. I took a picture of the “Bean and Brussel Sprout” quadrant.

The top shelf is regular garlic. The second shelf is elephant garlic. That is some large garlic.

In the Home Arts and Crafts barn was, without a doubt, the whitest thing I have ever seen, ever, and that was the Angel Food Cake Bake-Off. It didn’t help that the booth was manned by Betty White’s doppelganger.

There was, not surprisingly, a ton of food to choose from. This is a very Polish area, so Polish cuisine made a strong appearance.

What are cactus taters? Anyone?

The thing I noticed this year was the church groups selling foods. I insisted on saying the church name followed by the foods offered therein in a loud monotone voice, which caused me to crack up and my father to distance himself from me. For example:

“BLACK CREEK METHODIST CHURCH BAKED POTATO!!”

or:

“STRAWBERRY RIDGE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST ROAST BEEF SANDWICHES!!”

I amuse myself.

Here is a sandbox filled with corn.

And here is a typical cross-section of the people of the Yoo-Nited States of ‘Merka. We are not a beautiful people.

And finally, an organ that plays by itself. I couldn’t decide if I liked it or it was going to give me nightmares. I’m still undecided.

Anyway, I may go again next year because even though it’s a three-hour drive from my house, I get to see stuff that does not make its way to New York.

Posted in Activitays, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | No Comments »

A cool artist you should know about.

Monday, September 17th, 2012

Meet Felieke van der Leest.

Here’s a chunk of her bio translated from Dutch:
The jewelery design by Van der Leest enriched with the introduction of textile crochet techniques. Combined with gold, silver and plastic she developed this in ten years its own idiom. She took his from her childhood when she Emmen often went exploring in the Zoo and the vocational training to goldsmith in Schoonhoven. Her unbridled imagination later came to full bloom at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. For someone who normally works hand-held, it is remarkable to monumental installations to develop. However, Van der Leest several “jewelry” for public spaces realized in collaboration Nephew Niece Design.

As I have mentioned several times, I love when artists take what some might consider rubbish or throw-away items and through hard work and creativity, transform this “trash” into something of beauty and worth. Felieke van der Leest takes small plastic animal figurines, cuts them up, caps parts in silver and crochets elements like clothes or mermaid tails to put on them. I am totally entranced by the collage-like effect in the end.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Random Art Bloggery | No Comments »

Facing my fears. (That was a dumb idea.) And spiders!

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

I lived in Rye for the first eighteen years of my life, a mere mile or so from Playland Amusement Park. I haaaaaaaate amusement park rides because I feel no need, really, none whatsoever, to be exhilarated by speed, jarring movements, or the perception of imminent death. I was thinking the other day how amazing it was to come home to an air-conditioned room, strip down to your nethergarments, plop down on cool, clean sheets and watch something on cable. I felt like that was truly bliss. What is NOT truly bliss is to drive to a giant parking lot on a crazy-hot day, pay a bucketload of money, stand in long lines, and have a ride smack you around like you’re a battered wife. However, Playland has an iconic ride called the Dragon Coaster that has been there since 1929 and since I grew up in its large skeletal wooden shadow I felt I was somewhat obligated to ride it. Once. So this past Saturday Cricket and I went on down to Playland at noon, right when it opened for the day so the lines were short, bought a few individual rides, and got in line for the Dragon Coaster. We watched the people in front of us go on the ride while my heart pounded. Did I forget to mention that I did this without the assistance of any (doctor-prescribed or otherwise) anxiety-inhibiting drugs? I did it Civil-War-surgery-style, just bite down on this stick, rrrrrrrr. Then it was our turn. We got the last seats in the last car where Cricket gave me the comforting comment, “You can puke all you want, it’ll just go behind us!” And we were off. Here’s a video someone took so you too can live the dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLGlbD8OcSg

Here’s my feelings on it: The first big fall, I was fine. The first sharp turn, I was fine. Wheee! And then the ride actively tried to make me sick (up, down, up, down – at the :37 mark) which, frankly, hurt my feelings. Why, Dragon Coaster? We were having a nice time together, why did you have to try and make me barf? That was mean. Right after we exited the dark inside-the-dragon part and the ride tried to make me quease again, I turned to Cricket and said OKAY, I’M DONE NOW. DONE NOW. I’M DONE. Cricket realized we were on the threshold of me freakin’ the eff out, so he tried to be all soothing and whatnot and he said something akin to, “Great job honey, I’m very proud of you – but the ride isn’t over yet. See? More ride.” I continued with my loud, emphatic BUT I’M DONE. DONE NOW. I suppose I thought that if I kept repeating that phrase the ride would stop, grinding to a halt from the sheer power of my intense, bone-crushing desire to get off. Cricket kept having to say things like, “Look how low we are! We’re almost finished, honey! So very proud of you! etc.” The second we pulled into the disembarkation bay I changed my mantra to GET OUT RIGHT NOW. OUT. GET OUT. Cricket had to pull me out and, no exaggeration, my whole body was violently shaking so bad I could barely stand. We left the ride area with me looking like a newborn foal and I promptly draped myself over a fence to die. Cricket took pictures.

Please note I am wearing one of the only white t-shirts I own because I knew it would be in the 90s that day. There it is, like seeing the Loch Ness Monster. Jess in a white t-shirt. Enjoy.

So I faced one of my fears. I’m thinking I don’t have to go on another amusement park ride for another 34-and-three-quarters years. Everyone okay with that?

You know what I am not afraid of? Spiders! I was out of the country for the Super Bowl this year, so I missed all the commercials. When I returned, Snorth sent me this one which I adore and watch periodically just for funsies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe1cJPD_ZbA

Fantastic. Snorth pointed out to me that her favorite bug was the jumping spider that says, “Hello, lunch.” I informed her that I was unfamiliar with jumping spiders. And then the deluge began. Long story short: it has been four months since the Super Bowl, I now have a jumping spider as my background image on my phone, I belong to the Spider Fan Page on Facebook, and I’m already thinking about drawings I’m going to make incorporating jumping spiders in them. I also have a favorite group of jumping spider called the salticids. I like them bestest for a variety of reasons. One is that their heads are square-shaped and they appear to have eyeballs in all four corners. Another reason is the feather-duster-arms they use to clean all these eyeballs. But the primary reason I love them is because the males have big ole fangy-fangs that are iridescent and that totally resemble enormous buck teeth. Whenever I see one I automatically say “MIRFF!” with my front teeth pushed all the way forward because that’s what I think they would sound like. Here’s the picture on my phone.

Here’s one of my favorite animated gifs.

And here’s a sexay leggy mating dance.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7qmpz_saitis_animals?start=38

I highly recommend that you go to Google, type “jumping spider” in and hit Images. It’s like a treasure trove of tiny adorable little spiderypoo goodnesss.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, My Art/Design/Business, Nature, New York, Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Lobstahs.

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

I was doing research for my Burning Man costume (I’m trying to accomplish building a face-thingie), and when searching for “lobster face” on Google, once I get past the four million pictures of Lady Gaga wearing that glittery lobster hat, I found some really interesting lobster pics. Did you know lobsters develop each half of their body separately? I didn’t. The cool side effect is two-toned lobsters. One is even half male, half female, split down the middle. (S)he is an exceptionally confused crustacean.