Sunday, April 29:

We helped our pals Erika and Aaron (the welding/blacksmithing couple) Move into their new house yesterday. Don and I focused on moving the art which turned out to be five truckloads of metal sculptures. Five truckloads. Can you beat that? It isn't like this is inventory that she cranked out for a specific show--this is just shit that was sitting around in their yard. Well over 100 pieces ranging in size from the size of this boot planter to the size of this enormous flower (maybe 10 feet tall when assembled). (That's Aaron's dad in the picture. He has mutton chops! I needed him in there for scale.)

One of my favorite pieces is this Kopokelli guy. Erika uses a lot of scissor and hedgetrimming blades in her work which makes it very difficult to move things without impaling yourself on or cutting yourself with something sharp and rusty. I didn't try to pick up Kopokelli guy but I did carry several heavy boquet type sculptures that were basically bundles of rusty scissor blades attatched to springs. Those were so cool but if you laughed while you were carrying them the scissor bundles would start bobbing around.

This art bike is pretty nifty too. Here's another view of it. Yup yup. Moving can be fun if interesting stuff is involved. And you don't have to put any of it away.

Friday, April 27:

Well I tried anyway. I got this picture, a picture of the top of my head and a very close up, over exposed picture of just my face and no refrigerator before my battery went dead. I look kind of angry in that over exposed one. I wasn't angry though, I was just confused because my camera was telling me that I was videoing a 3 second clip of myself and the fridge. Anyway, that's what I got for SPF--me and the mini-fridge at the store. Inside the fridge is food for the lizards and the hedgehogs and some really old condiments. Really old. I haven't looked in the door of that thing in a long, long time.

The other photo is the front of one of the fridges at the house. I couldn't do a "two" and take my own picture at the same time. Happy birthday SPF!

I almost forgot to tell you the answer to Wednesday's slang trivia question! The useful word of multiple meanings is "BLOW". Isn't that interesting? I like to imagine that you think it is interesting. I like to imagine lots of stuff.

Wednesday, April 25:

So, anyway, about my twin hobbies of reading Cassell's Dictionary of Slang and trying to appreciate or at least understand David Lynch movies, both are moving right along. With the slang I had hoped to increase my everyday vocabulary with tidbits both colorful and thought provoking. After plowing through most of the book I'm realizing that my original estimate of 75% of the words referring to either sexual intercourse, sex organs or inebriation is either right on or maybe a little low. It's actually too redundant to be applicable to everyday conversation.

Fun facts abound, though. I'll share one with you right now. Slang, like regular language, contains words that have multiple meanings. With slang, as I've pointed out before, the meanings nearly always refer to sex, drinking, smoking, bodily functions and what have you. I found one word (so far) that to me seems the most useful slang word of all as it at once refers to nearly all of slang's popular issues. The word I've found can mean to come to orgasm, to play music, to vomit, to break wind, to smoke, to speak angrily and to ruin, upset or destroy. Do you know what this word is? I'm not going to reveal it to you today...maybe tommorrow.

This isn't a trivia contest or anything. If you think you know the word and you want to email me and tell me you may do so. In return you will recieve a verbal (electronic) pat on the head for showing interest in something that I believe is interesting only to me.

I guess I'll tell you about David Lynch another day.

Monday, April 22: Warning: "Happy Feet" Spoiler

I saw "Happy Feet" yesterday, mostly because I like computer animated movies about critters like "Finding Nemo" and "A Bug's Life". "Happy Feet" was kind of a strange flick. Cute and well done but also unexpectedly preachy. That bothered me a lot. Did you see it? What was up with the ending? The movie makers went out of their way to work their "left wing propaganda" about how we shouldn't pollute or eat up the penguin's fish supply (which I totally agree with, of course) into the movie only to have it end with the penguin colony being saved not because a species is a terrible thing to waste but because the penguins could dance and people found them entertaining enough to want to save them? Look, I know that the movie has to end with the outsider being the hero but how does this dovetail with the whole respect for the earth theme? You can't have a heavy message like that in a movie about dancing penguins without fucking something up.

What's ironic is I thought that if anything would ruin this movie for me I thought it would be the fact that Robin Williams is in it. He actually did a really good job as four different voices--Latino penguins and what not. He might have been the best part of the movie. They should have just stuck with those Latino penguins and left out the rest of that stuff.

Saturday, April 21:

Lucy the iguana came out of her cage for a run today. Together we cleaned up the carpeted floor--her by eating up tiny bits of leaves and paper and me using a bench brush and a dustpan. While we worked I sang to Lucy spiritual-type songs where in I substituted the word "Lizard" for key words in the song title. I like to imagine that Lucy's blank stare and stiffened stance is a sign that she is enjoying listening to "Old Man Lizard", "Lizard, Row The Boat Ashore" and "Oh! What A Beautiful Lizard". It would have been faster to vacuum but I don't think either one of us would have enjoyed that. Since my brain is larger than a chick pea I'm aware that the shop-vac isn't a noisy monster that wants to eat me. I'm thankful for that but that knowledge does not endear me any more to vacuuming. I'd rather use a brush and an iguana.

Friday, April 20:

Random and Odd's SPF was too easy this week. I've got knobs out the yin-yang. This one is a door knob that's going on the downstairs bathroom door at the Fun House. Of course, the great knob will make the door look like crap so we'll have to paint the door to match the knob. The cool door will make the kitchen look like crap so then we'll have to fix the remaining kitchen walls and paint them...then we'll have to do something with the bathroom. I don't know...it seems like a lot of work. Maybe I'll just hide the knob somewhere in the studio where it won't mock anyone with it's endless possibilities.

In other (bad) news: Our next door neighbors--the nice, cool, normal ones are moving away and selling their house. Nooooo!! The first thought that popped into my head was that they were moving so that they could be farther away from us. Turns out, that's not the case and that makes me feel a little better. I mean Don just finished setting up a full drum kit in the living room and then the neighbors put a "For Sale" sign in their yard. I thought the two things might be related. Anyways, we are very sad to see them leave and we're kind of dreading breaking in some new people. No one is going to be as cool as Phil and Agape.

Wednesday, April 18:

I went to a barbeque last night held in the backyard of my and Don's pal Mary. (She's a baker used to work with Don at the Great Dane many years ago.) She lives about a block away from us. Mary is part of a circle of people who cook food for other people. She has these mass feedings at her house fairly regularly. It's a good time.

One of the more interesting developments in Mary's backyard was the erection of a chicken coop. I was surprised to learn that it is legal for people to own chickens in the city of Madison, particularly downtown where everything's so densely packed. Four birds per household is the limit. I find this intriguing and I'm dying to see how it all works out for them. Based on the number of households in their house they plan to 10 chickens in their backyard. One chicken can lay 9 eggs in 10 days. Don is excited about trading pounds of spent grain from the brewery for eggs. I'm just excited about seeing 10 chickens in a backyard in downtown Madison. What could possibly go wrong?

The picture above is of a portion of Don's mom's extensive ceramic chicken collection. That's the only photo I took while I was down there. I'm thrilled that I could use it in the blog.

Sunday, April 15:

Hello! I'm back. I've either been en route to or in or coming home from Nebraska since last Tuesday when Don's mom passed away. Sorry about the lack of notice--departure and arrival times were kind of sketchy so I didn't say anything at all. If you won something on Ebay last week I'll be shipping it out tommorrow. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Friday, April 6:

For this week's Stuff Portrait Friday I assembled all the objects revered by myself and the Lost School of Madison. These holy relics include a giant hedgehog, phrenology head, phrenology aardvark, Triangle Man, Copper Jesus, Scary Anthropormorphic Tree giving the finger, Psyduck, Cleaner Crab and a completely carbonized pizza which was the last thing we cooked in our apartment before moving into our house in 2005. These objects, except for the pizza which gets passed around a lot, all live on my worktable at home where they inspire awe in passers by. Some we've collected and some were given to us. If you have an object that you'd like to donate to the Holy Relic Pile please keep it to yourself as there is no more room on my bench.

P.S. You're probably wondering why that freaky mink muff my sister in law gave me isn't in the pile. Well, maybe you weren't but I'll tell you anyway. I forgot about it. Drat!

Thursday, April 5:

Did you see that NOVA show about cuttlefish the other night? Wasn't that neat? Cuttlefish are the coolest animals ever. They can change size and shape and color in an instant AND they have blinky lights on them and they squirt ink. They would totally be my new power animal were it not for the fact that absolutely everything eats them (including other cuttlefish). Dolphins are especially viscous toward them chewing off their tentacles and throwing the rest away. That figures. I never trusted dolphins.

I don't know how, if you saw one of these guys putting on a show in nature, eating it would even cross your mind. There isn't really a terrestrial equivalent to it but it would sort of be like seeing a male peacock with his feathers all out and your first thought being "Mmmmm...peacock...food." I guess they must be pretty tasty.

Cuttlefish are smart too, though the show's narrator kept damning them with faint praise saying that they are "The smartest of all the invertebrates". (Save for the octopi there's not a lot of competition in that particular category.) In the lab they caught on real fast to tests involving stimuli and food. Not as fast as one of your precious dolphins but probably faster than some other fish or a drunken college student. Someone ought to set the bar a little higher for these guys and see what they can really do. Go cuttlefish! And quit eating eachother-no one will ever take you seriously if you keep doing that!

Monday, April 2:

My mom tells me that when I was a little kid I used to spend a lot of time talking to fairies on a play telephone. I'd talk and talk. This tried the patience of my older brother who did not believe in fairies and thought I was stupid for believing that I could reach them on a toy phone. I paid him no mind and my one-sided conversations continued. I must have been pretty convincing because one day Mike, my brother, grabbed the toy phone away from me and said "Hello? Fairies?" in to the receiver. I don't think he believed they were there but he just had to make sure.

I'm in kind of a similar situation as Mike right now. I have several friends who are rabid David Lynch fans. Brad has seen Inland Empire in the movie theater twice. Despite using the phrases "too long", "no plot" and "like watching a nightmare" he still maintains that the movie is worthwhile and even great on some level. Others are backing him up. Having seen several David Lynch movies in the past, and knowing that those movies were much more coherent than Inland Empire, I find this slightly less plausible than my brother found the whole fairy on the phone thing.

So now, since the opinions of my buddies are raising reasonable doubt in my mind, I'm about to pick up the receiver and say "Hello? Fairies?". I'm not going to see Inland Empire or anything, I'm just going to spend several hours re-watching movie that I've seen but never really grasped in years gone by- Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. (I've got the Netflix now so I can do that.) Their enthusiasm for David Lynch is making me feel like I'm missing something. I predict that after watching Eraserhead I will come to the realization that no, I am not missing anything but I just have to be sure.

Sunday, April 1:

My pal Caroline tracked down and purchased the mysteriously-sized batteries that power the Psyduck toy that I found on the ground! Wow! I didn't think anyone was paying attention to the fact that Psyduck needed batteries. And he works, to some extent, even after being buried in the snow all winter! When you turn him on Psyduck emits a very sarcastic sounding quacking noise. Finding out that the toy still works is the kind of thing that makes me really happy. I am simple.

So Brad, the library guy, brought a Dictionary of Slang to Lost School last night. That dictionary is some good reading. I considered it a necessary addition to the library at home and had to go buy a copy on line today. Most of the words and phrases are euphamisms for either sex or smoking. Some of them, such as using the term "Shithooks" to refer to your hands, are inexplicable and hilarious and must be re-introduced into our lexicon. To use our new word we coined the phrase "Get your shithooks off of me". It's something you can say to someone who is either physically or mentally attacking you. We're going to use it all the time. You can too, if you want.

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