Would Sir care for some charts this evening?
February 15th, 2016I heart TV. Let’s talk about it.
February 13th, 2016I haven’t had a chance to really delve into the television I’ve been enjoying but there’s so much good TV out there and while working on the millions of projects I’ve had to tackle recently I had the opportunity to binge-watch some excellent brain-candy. It’s all different kinds of shows so perhaps you will find one in the pile that works for you.
Arrow. I went to middle and high school in Rye, New York. About five years ahead of me was a guy named Greg Berlanti. He was an amazing actor and he has gone on to be a super-successful producer for a big chunk of DC Comics’ ventures into television. Arrow is one of his projects, as is Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. Also I follow John Barrowman on Facebook ever since I decided he was the greatest post-watching Torchwood. Now I don’t know nothin’ about comics but because Greg’s name is attached and John Barrowman is on it my interest was piqued. I loved it. It fills the soap-opera / romance / sci-fi deficit you might have. Everyone is crazy-attractive. The villains are villainy. Lots of intrigue. The leads are tormented. The fight scenes are engaging. Occasionally some of these gorgeous people hook up with other gorgeous people. Bond-like gadgets are created. So many secrets are kept. The only complaint I have about the show (and maybe this is because I crammed three seasons over two weeks) is the amount of times a character would say “Are you okay?” and wait for another character’s response in order to move the plot along. I counted four “Are you okay?”s in one episode. I would occasionally yell out “I’M FINE DAMMIT” at my screen in response. Other than that, great fun show. Big fan.
Flash. Same story. I started watching it because of the crossover Flash actors making appearances in Arrow. In Arrow no one has super-powers, they’re all just extremely talented and well-trained. In Flash there was a nuclear explosion and now people can run very fast or control the weather or shoot fire out of their eyes, so if that’s an issue for you then this is not your show. But it’s fun and it’s easy to consume and the actors are charming and engaging.
Daredevil. This is a Marvel comic on Netflix. I seem to have gone on a comic-book kick but it just so happens that some of the most compelling stuff out there right now is comic-book based. I go where the good television leads me. It’s a Netflix series about a kid who loses his sense of sight from a chemical spill but in the process of going blind he realizes his other senses are heightened. He’s a lawyer by day, vigilante by night. This could very easily become extremely silly but it works. It’s very well-written and I was cautious but by the end I was on board. The only person I had a bit of a problem with was the bad guy played by Vincent D’Onofrio. He is my generation’s Christopher Walken. He has some weird speech tics that he has in every role he plays and each time I see him the only thing I think of is Edgar from Men in Black (D’Onofrio’s finest performance to date, IMO). Other than Vincent being a creepy cockroach in human form it’s a good series. I jumped in surprise at least two times.
Jessica Jones. Also a Marvel series, also on Netflix. I think it was greenlit due to the success of Daredevil. I absolutely loved it. First, the lead is a non-traditionally beautiful dark-haired woman, while her best friend (not the lead) is a traditionally beautiful blonde. Second, the lead falls in love with an African-American man and it’s not a huge deal. Third, the fact that several of the characters have superpowers isn’t the crux of the show, it’s about isolation and betrayal and loneliness. And finally, what I realized at the end is the love story isn’t between the lead and a man, it’s about her friendship with the blonde. The love story is about friendship between two women. AND the show was awesome. It was such a change from the usual stuff. I don’t have a problem with the usual Criminal Minds-type programming but I am delighted to see this departure and I hope it inspires more diversity on TV in the future.
The Knick. Wowsers. It’s like my love affair with New York and history hooked up with the best parts of the show House and had a baby. It’s great. The Knick is about a hospital called The Knickerbocker around 1912 in Manhattan. It’s a fictional hospital with fictional stories (although there was a hospital with that unofficial name in New York), but many aspects are based in reality. The sets and costumes and props are rigorously checked to be period-accurate and they are stunning. The main character is a brilliant drug-addicted doctor played by Clive Owen with an ego problem (there’s your House analogy) but it’s really an ensemble cast and they are all stellar. It delves into a lot of tough terrain – race, women’s roles, abortion, religion, addiction, mental illness, the advancement of medicine, etc. – so it’s not a “hey, I had a rough day at work and need to watch something to wind down” kind of show. Plus there is at least one gross medical procedure per episode. But I love it. Stephen Soderbergh directs and I believe also writed on The Knick and it better win a bunch of awards for everyone who works on it at some point in the near future.
Making a Murderer. Hoo boy. This one was tough. It’s a documentary series about Steven Avery. I mean, that’s true but it’s mainly about the tragic flaws in the American justice system, especially if you’re poor, not bright and ostracized by your community. I don’t want to get too into it, if you see it you should go in without bias. But there are some moments where you will feel compelled to throw a brick at the screen due to the complete and utter travesty of a police interrogation technique. Fight that urge. That television was expensive. You will regret smashing it. We all feel the same way.
The Room.
January 31st, 2016I finally saw the movie The Room. You may think I’m talking about the movie Room that recently came out and might win some Oscars but I am not. No, I am referring to the movie that came out in 2003. It cost six million dollars. It takes place in 2.3 locations. The acting hurts your eyes and ears. The sex scenes might make you sterile. It is notorious for being one of the worst movies ever created and now that I’ve seen it I think that’s a pretty accurate description. If you’d like I’d be happy to give you a synopsis of the “plot” as I remember it so you can be spared from seeing this unfortunate garbage dump of a inflated student film. It’s fine if I don’t remember things correctly, it doesn’t affect the movie in any way.
Before we get into this a bit of additional information. Does everyone remember Mystery Science Theater 3000? If not, their theme song will explain their show to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcUkKltAidM
The MST3K gentlemen still watch movies and add their commentary and that’s what I went to see. I was so extremely grateful for their continuous input because I don’t think I could have made it through without them. Also you should know about the writer/director/producer/actor of this thing, Tommy Wiseau. He is an age, but no one knows what it is. He is also from a country, not an English-speaking country, but no one knows which one. He’s short and creepily muscular with shoulder-length dyed-black hair in desperate need of a deep conditioning treatment. The MST3K fellows described him (extremely accurately) as a life-form completely made out of Madonna’s arms.
Okay. Here we go. The Room opens with lots and lots of shots of San Francisco. We are then introduced to an apartment that looks like it was decorated with things found at your local high-end Salvation Army including a framed portrait of a spoon. A female who will be called Dumpy Debbie Gibson (or DDG from this point on) and Tommy Wiseau (playing her fiancé Johnny) are doing or saying… something. It doesn’t matter. Johnny gives DDG a red dress that not flattering to anyone with limbs or a torso. He then says she looks beautiful and then start to head upstairs to make the love but the teenage neighbor boy Donnie comes over and the three of them engage in an awkward conversation where Donnie mentions he wouldn’t mind watching them get it on. (?) Johnny and DDG go on upstairs and proceed to have sexual relations in a bed surrounded by mosquito netting because we all are aware of San Francisco’s malaria epidemic. They have sex as if someone explained to them how humans mate but they’ve never seen it. Johnny kind of pushes his hip corner at her with each epically slow thrust which is not where male genitals are located. When I was in theater in high school we were taught to “open up” to the audience, meaning when you have a conversation with another actor you both turn slightly outward so the audience can see your face and hear you better. DDG and Johnny were doing that but in bed. I think Johnny then heads out to do something (I believe his character works at a bank doing banky things so maybe that) and DDG opens the door to find hot neighbor guy and Johnny’s best friend Mark there. She confesses she no longer loves Johnny, she doesn’t want to be his wife and she says Johnny hits her. Mark says it’s not a good idea for them to get it on but he cannot resist her because she is so beautiful. Then DDG and Mark have some sad version of intercourse on a spiral stairway. I cannot imagine for the life of me a more uncomfortable place to get naked and squish components with another person than a cold and oddly shaped metal staircase with jutting angles. That sadness ends. Mark leaves. Following that DDG’s mother comes over and they have a weird conversation where the mother confesses that she has breast cancer, DDG tells her not to worry and it is never mentioned again. (???) Somewhere in there there’s yet another sex scene with two completely irrelevant characters where the male makes the weirdest faces while receiving pleasure.
Johnny goes to buy his beloved DDG some roses in what is one of the worst scenes in ever. He walks into the flower shop… you know what, I can’t even describe it. I will find a video for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S9Ew3TIeVQ
That’s it. That’s the entire scene. I did not move the dialogue around, that’s the order it’s presented and at that speed. The only good actor in that scene was the ancient bloated fart pug on the counter. Or possibly the door. Awful, just awful. Johnny comes home with roses and he and DDG have sex again but instead of filming a totally new sex scene which may have proven fatal for everyone involved Tommy simply reused the EXACT SAME SHOTS from their previous sex scene, but faster. Here’s where things start to get fuzzy because the same conversation happens with different configurations of people. DDG no longer loves Johnny, she loves Mark. DDG’s mom (you know, the one with the breast cancer that’s never addressed again?) says DDG needs to stay with Johnny because he has money and can give her a good life. We also learn that Johnny kind of adopted Donnie and got him an apartment in the same building and that’s why he’s around all the time. Donnie fawns over DDG and tells her how beautiful she is and how he wants to get with her. This I don’t understand. DDG is not hideous but she is definitely not a smokin’ hot babe. “That nice girl who works at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels at the mall” would be a good description of DDG but every guy acts like their loins are magnetically drawn to her. I think in the reality of this movie all the other women in San Francisco are dead, perhaps killed off by that malaria epidemic and DDG is all that’s left. Another important thing is some of these conversations happen in the apartment and some of them happen on the roof. The roof is a whole other can of worms. The roof scenes are filmed surrounded by green screen and then San Francisco was added in afterwards but it doesn’t quite line up perfectly so it feels a bit trippy. The finest piece of acting in The Room is done as Johnny enters the roof and sees his friend Mark there. I have found it for you. You need only watch the first ten seconds or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4KzClb1C4
Then some indeterminate amount of time passes and there’s a party for Johnny and DDG’s wedding where DDG lies about being pregnant and starts making out with Mark in front of Johnny and Johnny is like oh hell no and kicks DDG out. He then goes on a rampage through the apartment like Frankenstein’s monster, rips DDG’s dress and humps it (badly, but that goes without saying since Tommy has no concept of how mammals express sexual love). Then Johnny puts a gun in his mouth and dies. DDG, Mark and Donnie find him and they fake-cry and blah blah blah the end. That’s it. There are other things that happen in The Room. Often a football is tossed around by the menfolk during conversations in the most awkward way imaginable. In one scene they toss the football around wearing tuxedos. It’s all a mess. Her’s a helpful video that summarizes everything I attempted to convey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvuwldnG7c0
Now I have seen this iconic cinematic treat and I feel fully comfortable never seeing it again.
Two artists that might make me not scared of dolls finally.
January 23rd, 2016Dolls are inherently creepy. The unblinking eyes. The unmovable expressions. Hell, a new horror film is coming up built on that premise. Remember my trip to Germany last year and the doll restaurant? Yep. Not a big fan of dolls. However, there is always room for change. And that change happened when I saw these handmade dolls from Russia. Two different artists. Russia is known for exceptional detail in their artwork. Their icons from many centuries ago are ornate.
And little has changed. One dollmaker is named Marina Bychkova and she is amazing. I know that word gets thrown around frequently, but hear me out. Marina makes articulated porcelain dolls with poseable limbs. She paints their faces. Then she embroiders and hand-beads their clothes. AND those metal headdresses, she makes them too. See? Amazing.
Then there are the Popovy Sisters. Their work is more modern but I love it as well. It reminds me of Alexander McQueen’s work but wee.
I could get on board with these dolls. NOBODY START SENDING ME DOLLS, THOUGH. FOR REALSIES. WORST NIGHTMARE. Unless they are by these artists. Then, mildly okay. OTHERWISE NO DOLLS.
Happy New Year!
January 17th, 2016Yes, I know it’s January 17th or whatever. It’s been a hellish two weeks. Would you like to hear about them? No? I’m telling you anyway. I was on a pitch, a global pitch. I had meetings with various European offices here in NY, as well as South American offices and Asian offices. Every one of them had sections of the Keynote deck they needed designed. I would meet with each office, incorporate their pages, then meet with the heads of the pitch, make their changes, back and forth and back and forth. THEN, when everything was hunky-dory a major not-to-be-meddled-with executive would come in and change everything on this 120-page document, causing me to have to stay up all damn night to make those changes. It was like this for two weeks. It got so intense I ended up getting a hotel room across the street from the office so I could grab four or five hours of sleep everyday with a minimal commute. The rest of the time was spent working. In my 12 years of being in the advertising industry this was one of the top five most stressful pitches I’ve been involved with. However it is now finished and I can return to my life of watching the Discovery Channel and writing blog entries. Let’s start with what I did on New Year’s Day. I have always wanted to do the Coney Island Polar Plunge. It’s held on New Year’s Day and people run into the ocean off of the Coney Island Beach in Brooklyn. Since I went to the Oase in Germany last year and had ice water thrown at my naked flesh I feel like I am emotionally and physically prepared to engage with the Atlantic. It wasn’t a coincidence that I picked this year because it was warm. Well, the air was 46 degrees and the water was about the same so maybe “warm” is the incorrect term, but glacier-like it was not. I was not aware that it is a charity event so I was delighted that my entry fee went to a camp for children with cancer. The theme is “freezin’ for a reason”. We arrived very early so we could be the first group in the ocean (so many people show up they space out the plunges). The police were cordoning off the beach and it totally looked like they had found body parts a là Dexter.
We headed out to where we decided we would park our stuff and waited for our cue. A ton of people showed up to cheer on and/or mock the plungers.
It started with a person in a full polar bear costume entering the ocean surrounded by women in bikinis playing trumpets. I would expect nothing else from Coney Island.
And then we were told to line up. We stripped down to our bathing suits and went in. It was surprisingly not bad. I was surprised. I thought the cold water or the cold air would hurt but it didn’t. I would describe it as “excessively refreshing.” Later that night, relaxing and unwinding with ufabet added a fun way to keep the good vibes going.
Afterwards we went for Russian food in the Brighton Beach area. Nothing warms the cold toesies like cherry dumplings and hot tea served in glass cups. I don’t know if I would ever do this again but I definitely would encourage others to because it’s a fun convivial atmosphere and it’s nice that it raises money for a good cause. I give it two shivery thumbs up.
Addendum: Here’s a super-cool picture of Coney Island from above.
Christmas: The Super-American All-Inclusive Deprogramming Holiday of I Think I’m Their Hostage Now.
January 4th, 2016Christmas! A holiday I never really had much to do with. I mean, I watch the stuff on TV and the movies and I’ve seen what it’s like, but it’s never really been something I’ve been immersed in. I don’t even think we did Chinese food and movies as is the way of our people. We went one step lower, doing “whatever’s in the fridge” and “what’s on PBS today?” So when I decided to spend the holidays with my friend Ness in San Francisco I was excited to see what the other 97.8% of Americans do December 24th and 25th. I was not disappointed. Let me give you a bit of backstory. All the people in my family are very very smart and very very useless. My father is a rabbi with three doctorates all in cerebral pursuits like theology and Hebrew letters. My mother is an art historian who speaks three languages fluently and five more not fluently. Our dinner parties are not for the weak of spirit. You know how you are not supposed to talk about politics or religion in polite company? That’s ALL we talk about, and any religion or any country’s politics is up for debate. It’s not uncommon to hear someone say something like, “Yes, but that is due to the rift caused by the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913. If the Ottoman Empire had blabittyblah blah etc. and blah.” Lots of clever and intelligent. However, between both my parents they cannot manage to use a cell phone. They didn’t clean the filter of their household water supply thing in the basement for a decade. A DECADE. (It’s astonishingly easy to replace.) My father prefers a broom and dustpan to a vacuum because a vacuum is a bit too much technology for one man. My point is anything technological or manual labor-y is beyond them. When the apocalypse comes they will be the first to be eaten because they are the human equivalent of kobe beef. Ness’s family, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. They are all in law enforcement of some kind, except for the hair dresser/Zumba teacher. They drink alcohol for fun, not only for religious ceremonies. They can fix things. They like sports. They embrace technology. They don’t watch the news four times a day. I didn’t see them watch the news once, actually. They put those “Love, Laugh, Live” letter cutouts over their couches and have tons of pictures of their families on display. We are not the same. But I imagine the rest of the country is far more like them then they are like me, an effete New York Jew, so I relished the opportunity to experience what life is like for just about everyone else.
Okay. It felt a bit like when someone gets out of a cult and they need to be reacclimated back into society and they have to be strapped to chair and immersed hard. First, Ness insisted on only Christmas music. I heard that epically crappy song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by BandAid about four times. Don’t ask me how many times I heard Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” A million, give or take. Then, Hallmark Christmas movies. Ness DVRed about ten of them. I watched five from beginning to end. I would like to deviate now from my trip to talk about the Hallmark Christmas movies if I may. They all have the same plot structure and here it is:
“Hi! I’m a woman, a single woman, and I have a promising career in medicine / dress design / business! Gosh, I’m well on my way! Reaching for the stars! Oh no, I’ve been stranded in Garland, Alaska on my way to my fellowship in Boston due to weather, or maybe my father passed and I need to return to the rinkydink town of my childhood from L.A to take care of my father’s affairs. Whatever reason, I have to leave whatever major city I was heading towards or living in, the major city where I’m going fulfill my potential. No biggie, I’ll only be here for a short while. But what’s this? This charming local man who is a woodworker / elementary school music teacher / fireman. His smile, it causes me to swoon and melt right into my mom jeans. What to do, what to do? Give up on all my career goals, ones I might have had since I was a child, to stay here with Mr. As Hunky As Hallmark Could Afford whom I barely know?”
Let me save you some time. They all stay in Flyover Town USA and devote their life to the dude. Each and every single one. I want to listen in to the Hallmark Christmas Movie meetings. I feel like they sound like this, “We must keep the women of America who got pregnant at 19 and couldn’t go to college placated, put out another movie that convinces them that careers are meh and true love is only found in rectangular states to keep them from poisoning the Sloppy Joes and fleeing to a coast. That should do it.”
Sorry about that. Back to the trip. Ness likes to plan lots of activities so on the first day I was in San Fran we did tourist stuff. I went to the Cable Car Museum. We walked around Little Italy. We met a former co-worker for dinner. Normal stuff. Day two is where things got fascinating. I was invited to an Oakland Raiders football game, complete with tailgating. I have been to one other NFL game (read this for a recap of that magical experience) and this time I was excited to have someone with me to explain the finer points of the sport. Ness and her aunt decked me out in appropriate regalia and I sat quietly in the parking lot and watched the other tailgaters do their thing.
Their thing is THOROUGH. I’ve been to weddings less organized than some of these camps. Giant tents. The most insane food being cooked – prime rib, lobster tails, king crab legs, deep-fried turkeys. Not only did people bring their own sound systems, they brought their own DJs to spin their desired tunes. All of this was happening in a parking lot. People brought entire bars. The smell of weed was pungent and copious. (Is nothing illegal in California? Where are your mothers?) I was told that since it was Christmas Eve there were far fewer people than usual, normally the whole giant parking lot is full.
Look, proof! Lobster tails:
A DJ for a group of about six people:
Lest we forget it’s San Francisco-adjacent, dirty hippies!
And some guy’s small school bus that he decorated both inside and out:
Finally after about four hours we wrapped up the light debauchery and headed into the stadium. I would like to say I watched the game with rapt attention and can tell you all about the different players and what they did. I wish I could say that. The truth is I only watched three things: the big screen (Kiss cam! Pop and lock dancing!), the cheerleaders (did you know they’re out the the entire game freezing their components off?) and the hover-camera. That hover-camera, which I originally thought was a drone, tapped into something really primal for me. It’s a camera that looks exactly like a A.I. version of a black shiny hornet and it zips around on three cables tethered to the top bits of the walls of the stadium. It zips extremely quickly and did I mention it looks like a giant robot wasp? We were right behind the goalposts so whenever it bzzzzzed with great alacrity over to the touchdown area I would scream. I could imagine it breaking free of its moorings and killing everyone. That’s it. That’s all I paid attention to the whole time. SPORTS!
I had heard the Oakland Raiders fans are the scariest in the NFL. They were fine. Charger fans would walk through the parking lot fully decked out and the Raiders fans would boo at them, then offer them snacks or wave goodnaturedly. There were 30,000 fans there and I saw one fight break out. It was quelled before I could even turn around and get a good look. Fine. Everything was fine.
The next day was Christmas. We watched the Warriors vs. the Cavaliers (basketball). We wore festive red and green garb. We ate cheesy potatoes and ham and green bean casserole. We opened seven thousand presents, four thousand of which were sports-related socks. This may not sound that thrilling for you, but I’ve never done these things. I must have looked completely daft watching Ness’s family like they were part of a scientific research project. I imagine this is what it must be like when people come to our house for Hanukkah. It’s neat to be on the other side.
I spent most of my time chilling with the cat on the couch. I love that damn cat so much. SO. MUCH. I have spoken of this love before.
The last few days there we went to Muir Woods were there are old giant pine trees. It smelled amazing.
I must have said, “Look at that tree!” fifty times.
Not gonna lie: hugged a lot of trees.
There was a massive crack in one of the trees where people were taking pictures.
Here was our version.
On my insistence Ness also hugged a tree in her own way.
I highly recommend Muir Woods. Especially if you wish to protest something. They have an area for that.
It was a magnificent trip and Ness has already planned activities for my next visit. I’ve never been to Alcatraz and I want to ride on the double-decker bus, so we will do that.
You want some charts? I got your charts RIGHTEERE.
December 26th, 2015
Internet Dribs and Drabs.
December 16th, 2015Instead of getting anything done ever I am now watching these Vines and giggling at my desk. Did I mention I work in an open floor plan? My co-workers are very lucky to be in my presence.
These.
Also these.
I think Buzzfeed has run out of ideas. Stop, Buzzfeed. Just stop.
Seriously, call it a day.
Look at this mesmerizing gif of someone pouring mercury into a martini glass.
And this amazing mural in an old church.
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/12/skate-church-okuda-san-miguel/
And this jaunty festive caterpillar who turns into a slightly less festive but lovely nonetheless moth.
So very artistic am I.
December 14th, 2015I know I’ve been super-lackadaisical with my posting of late and I don’t want anyone to think it is because I have given up on blogging. That is way far from the truth. It’s because I’ve been so busy, all in positive ways. But I think work is slowing a wee bit and now I can blog at the furious pace (like two posts a week, but still) I had become accustomed to.
One thing I’ve been tackling is my kitchen. Ah, my kitchen. The Sisyphean task I took on, what, seventeen years ago or something? It feels like that. But the last of my glass arrived and now I’m in the home stretch (Hallelujah Moses!). I put the white strips of glass over the white paint I laid down. And just to clarify, but white glass, I mean opaque white, semi-transparent white, as well as very pale brown, yellow and blue. I wanted nuances of white, not a flat white. It looks a bit aged which is pretty cool.
After I finished all of those I tackled the trees. I made trapezoids and rectangles and irregular quadrilaterals out of clear glass with little bubbles in it, rounded all their corners using a grinder and glued them to onto the wall. It took seven hours to do the big trees and two and a half hours to do the small trees. And since I was making up the patterns on the fly I had to stop every two or three pieces and assess how I would proceed. It was a tough process but it would have been infinitely harder if I had planned where every piece was going to go.
After that I made the orange dots that go in the center of the branches. I can’t take full credit for the delightful blobular branches. I realized afterwards that I had totally ripped off another artist, a great lowbrow one named Jeff Soto. See?
I don’t feel bad about it, I’m not making any money off of this project and it’s my kitchen anyway. Where was I? I was making the orange dots in the middle of the branches. I bought semi-transparent orange glass and then I traced circles onto it, roughly cut them out and then ground down any edges so they were round coins. Then I painted the backs with gold paint so they would be opaque and have a faint shimmer.
Then I made the branches a dark red which look like a warm black, very nice, and now all that’s left is for me to do big background squares and I’m done. Done, I tell you! Home stretch!
But wait, there’s more! In addition to working on my kitchen and doing my full-time job I was asked to make the photo op for our holiday party. And, like everything I do I went a wee bit overboard. I designed seven mountains composed of patterns containing our company colors (pink, purple and red) plus gold and silver. The three big mountains are on a background covered in snowflakes but the four smaller mountains go in the foreground, giving the photo op some depth. Here’s a rough mock-up I made so people would understand my vision.
The studio we have (that have large format printers) printed out the back part and all the smaller mountains were printed and cut out. All I had to do was prop them up.
But nope. This is when I got really excited, went to Michael’s, bought $300 worth of crafty goodness and started making glittery, three-dimensional bits and pieces. It looked like it took no time at all but it actually took twenty-five hours or so. Crazy how things take a long time if you want them to be tidy and nice. Totally worth it. It turned out excellent. Here is a lovely photo of me installing the photo op in the space.
And here are some people posing with it. I feel very pleased with myself. *Pats self on back*
Now that those projects are completed (or semi-completed) I shall hopefully get back to my usual schedule of getting things done (and blogged) in a reasonable amount of time.
Addendum: I got some decent pictures of the three-dimensional aspects of the mountains.
South America Part 14 ‘n’ done.
December 13th, 2015The equator! What Ecuador is named after. The equator runs right through and I got to visit it. It was weirder than I expected. We did some scientific stuff standing on the actual line and things did not go how I anticipated. But first, some Quito pics.
A tree in the giant park in the middle of town. The parks were lovely. There are artists along one whole edge with all different styles of paintings for sale.
We went to a market that the locals shop at. It was intense. Everything was out and the meat and fish were fine (meaty and fishy, to be expected) but the vegetable and fruit section, I could have hung out there all day.
There were giant piles of fresh herbs. There was a lady who only sold potatoes. She must have had fifteen or twenty different kinds. And, as with most places in the world that are not the United States, you could bring your dog in with you.
We also went to a authentic sorbet maker. In the olden days a donkey would carry down ice from the tops of the mountains that would be put in a large tub with salt. Now they use regular freezer ice but the rest of the process remains the same. A big flat-bottomed bronze pan with two handles is placed on the ice and fruit juice mixed with sugar is poured in. The the sorbet-person uses the handles to spin spin spin the bronze pan and uses a wooden spoon to move the juice mixture around the bottom. Eventually all the juice freezes and boom, sorbet. The one we saw being made was from local blackberries. It was delicious.
Okay, the equator. It’s actually part of a whole teaching space sponsored by the Ecuadorian government. We learned about the cultures that lived around there. We saw a human shrunken head and a sloth’s shrunken head.
And in the same area was THE WORST TAXIDERMY I HAVE EVEN SEEN. EVER. I started laughing so hard, I felt bad for the guide. I tried to explain that it had nothing to do with him but I couldn’t breathe and had to go sit down for a minute. Here, allow me to share some of these magical creatures with you. The two most incorrect ones were the ocelot:
And the anaconda. Oh dear Lord, the anaconda. Are… are those eyes hot-glued on?
The sideshow creatures were the only sub-par element there. Everything else was beautiful. The landscaping was particularly lovely.
We were shown an ancient sundial which told you only three times a day – morning, midday and afternoon. It was scary how on point it was. It was almost exactly 4:00 in the afternoon and look, the shadow is right on the 4. Amazing.
I didn’t know much about the equator.
I’ve mentioned this before but in high school I took Biology for Football Players and Poets in my senior year. My STEM skills are weeeeeeak. So every experiment the guide did was like a miracle for me. For example, he had a sink that wasn’t hooked up to anything, it simply had a bucket underneath. When he positioned the sink and bucket six feet to the left of the equator (in this case it was in the Southern hemisphere) and poured water into it, the water swirled in one direction. Then he moved the bucket and sink six feet into the Northern Hemisphere, repoured the water and it swirled in the other direction. Finally, he positioned the sink and bucket directly on the equator and the water went straight down. The next experiment we did was balancing an egg on a nail head. You can do that on the equator you know. (I did not know.) My niece Drea was the only one with the steady hands to do it. We were all very proud.
Finally, the guide asked us to walk heel to toe along the red line. None of us could go more than three steps. Apparently that is because when you are in the Northern or Southern hemisphere and you walk like that, you only get pulled in one direction so you can self-correct. One the equator you are being pulled very gently in both directions, enough so that your balance is quite compromised. Science!
There you go, the end of my trip. It was scary and exciting and thrilling and wonderful and I’m glad I went. If you wish to do the same trip, here is the company I went with.