Friant, Found

Having a day free from work usually allows me to do nothing but laze about on the couch watching silly sci-fi movies I've seen a thousand times. However this morning I randomly stumbled upon a 'new' artist,
Emile Friant.

I won't go into analyzing his work..I could ramble on for hours about how gorgeous the brushwork is and how some of it, particularly the works that contain a singular figure are so hauntingly photographic it just baffles that the rest of the image is slurry and faded out. See? I can't help myself.

Yet I will say that he's a brilliant blend of all the qualities I love about Waterhouse, Sargent and Cabanel. I'm surprised I've never heard of this guy because he was a supreme talent and I have a serious soft spot for the French Realist painters. Actually a soft-spot is being mild...I have an undying burning obsessive lusting passion for the French Realist movement. I will definitely be on the hunt for his work in my future travels.

I will leave you with some of his goodies...

"Jeune Nancienne dans un paysage de neige" 1887

 "La petite barque"

 "The Expiation"

"Voyage a l'Infini" 1899 

"Cast Shadows"

 

"La Bande a Galle"

Autoportrait

Muse Fuel

Quite often, as is the case with any artist, the muse disappears. For long stretches of time. Long, maddening, painful stretches of time. But then a small spark of something: a change in the weather, a song you haven't heard in ages, a good turn of phrase from a friend or in a book...it will reignite the passions and feed that starving little muse that vanished into a dark corner of your being.

When the well is dry for so long, you learn to live with it, or forget about it. You can't remember the last time you were creative, the last time you put your heart into something beautiful or wonderous. Then it's much like a long-overdue wild fire and it rushes through you, burning away all the dead broken mess inside your head so new things can grow, push up through the ashes.

I've noticed my muse tends to prefer colder weather. I look back on stories and poems I've written and see that the majority of them were created during the fall/winter months. The current scientific theory about depression and lack of productivity during the darker months of the year (a mood disorder called SAD: seasonal affective disorder) doesn't seem to apply here.

My mind must swell under the humid oppressive heat of a South Carolina spring/summer and once the chill hits the air, it is free to expand.

The nighttime sky is vividly clear: each and every star, planet, galaxy is put into crisp nuclear perspective and on a freezing November night, when the moon is too small to matter, you can see into infinity. And the muse revels in the chaos.

So she returns. Nice to see you again, lady.

--Manda
11/14/10

Day Five: 7/29/10

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

London Calling.

Today we had an agenda: get to London as early as we can and do as much as we can before we die from exhaustion. Well the last part nearly happened but I’ll get to that shortly.

Ate breakfast as quickly as possible then scurried to the train station, where, because of long lines we missed the first train to London Bridge station by 10 seconds! Had to wait another 30minutes before the next one arrived then it was a nearly two hour ride to London. I had bought a paper to pass the time and had fun reading all the strange little bits thrown in with the real news.

When we finally get there we made our way, with relative ease, to London Bridge. Took pictures of ourselves with the Tower Bridge off in the distance, took same pic for a cute asian girl, then we headed on down to The Tower. Very cool and yet not at all what I expected.

It’s not really a ’tower’. It’s a complex of buildings, all built/rebuilt in different times and all serving different purposes, none of them originally meant for prisoners or torture. Part of it was actually a palace at one time and another part (The Bloody Tower) was home to Sir Walter Raleigh and his family. Apparently it’s also the place where the two little princes were supposedly murdered but they don’t really know so it’s just legend. 

Then we stood in line to see the Crown Jewels. It was a serious queue but it didn’t take long. The English certainly know how to move a line along! We got to see almost all the royal crowns since the 1660s, along with the scepters, orbs and rings the monarchs wore during coronation. I was really interested in seeing the Koh-I-noor diamond. The history of it is amazing and the superstitions that surround it make it even more cool.

After that we headed on over to Tower Green so we could be in the area where so many super historically famous figures were executed. It was really kind of creepy and sad at the same time to see a site where such intense drama and history played out, all sanitized and harmless looking. We also ventured into the small church who’s crypt houses the bones of all those executed, including Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, Catherine Howard and Thomas Cromwell. It was really surreal.

So after that cheery bit we decided to pop into the small area where they show medieval torture devices and then we found the tower (Bell Tower) where supposedly Thomas More spent his remaining days before he had his head chopped off. The Tower of London was such a gruesomely intriguing place to go!

After The Tower, we made our way across Tower Bridge, taking lots of pics and looking for the The Globe Theatre. We found it, but it turns out they actually use it for productions and it’s really not the original thing (obviously), but just the original site. Then we went looking for the Tate Modern but not before we had some fish and chips from a pub/restaurant near The Globe. It was a little bit more fancy than the other pubs we went to and much bigger, but the fish and chips were EXACTLY like the kind I used to get with my grandmother in Triangle City. Yeah. In SC. I got a little nostalgic but we washed that away with the best Hoegaarden I’ve had since Belgium and a Leffe.

Then we found the Tate Modern and enjoyed all the goodies they had to offer. Jason was in his element, getting all Stendhal Syndrome over some de Chirico and Dali and Pollock. Then I found the Rothko and cried. It was glorious.

They don’t really have that much there, but what they do have is brilliant. Mondrian, Monet, Pollock, Dali, Bacon, Tanguy, Ernst and Lichtenstein. We got loads of funny pics.

After that we got seriously lost looking for the street in Soho that had all the record shops on it. I was SO NOT digging all the walking. I felt like my feet were going to explode. All I could think of while I was walking was ‘this is how it must felt to be marched as a slave with an invading army hundreds of years ago’ or “now I know how Sam and Frodo felt going to Mt. Doom.” Not happy Manda there. We failed with the Tube and then got irritated and pissy being dehydrated and tired, only managing to find one record shop only ten minutes before they closed.

We had to leave with only a few things and could not have been happier to get back to the B&B. We were STARVING cause we missed eating in London and didn’t get back to Canterbury until after 11 when all the bars were closing. So we ended up getting chicken kebab at a late night eatery run by Turkish guys. It was so delicious, but that may have been because we were dying from hunger and thirst and exhaustion. Who knows.

After that we were dead to the world, though I managed to somehow get a second wind and blog a little, get on Facebook for a few minutes and didn’t end up going to sleep until 1:30am. That was a LONG effing day!

Day Four: 7/28/10 Wednesday

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

So today was our photoshoot. We knew we needed to be ready for pictures at 3pm so we got up early, had breakfast downstairs, then headed back to Dover to tackle the White Cliffs.

It was pretty darn warm, probably the warmest day we’ve had here so far and let me tell you, climbing the White Cliffs of Dover is NOT a pleasure hike. I won’t go into all the huffing and puffing, name-calling and whining that Ms. Amanda did (as Jason says) but really I don’t see how the old people were doing it. There were tons of really elderly people just ambling about, not a bead of sweat or look of exhaustion. Guess we’re just fat lazy Americans or something. Anyway…We walked and climbed and scrambled for nearly three hours. But once you’re up there all the pain and drama is worth it. Oh brother is it worth it. The pictures we took only get a portion of the beauty.

And besides traveling to Dover to see the White Cliffs for a purely historical or ecological reason, we went up there to create a memory: we found a little spot, overlooking the water, with towering cliffs before us and we exchanged our vows and wedding bands and became (as far as we’re concerned) a married couple. We were technically already legally married, having signed the marriage license on 7/20, but it wasn’t real until we did that.

It was sappy and silly and I cried a little. But we’ll never forget it.

*

Well after all that, we had to hurry back ’home’ and get ready for our photo shoot. I got ready in amazing record time and we had to walk about two blocks down the street, in full wedding regalia, to the bewildered looks of drivers and passerbys and whistles from some guys in a work van, so we could meet our photographer in the Westgate Gardens. His name is Russ and he specializes in these amazing high fashion, movie-esque style shots, which both Jason and I really dig.
We did a good 45minutes in the gardens, making use of the gorgeous river and crazy graffiti under the underpass near the rear of the gardens. Then Russ and his friend/assistant Dragon (seriously his real name apparently) drove us out about 10minutes outside of Canterbury to an abandoned farm/machine yard. We got some wicked shots, what with all the rusted metal, broken glass, cracked machines and the glorious field of rape right next to it.

It was very fun and I seriously enjoyed it. Jason took a while to warm up, but he did better than I thought he would. Such a good sport!

Anyway, that was it for that day. We came back and got drunk off our asses at The Unicorn, after we enjoyed sea bass fish cakes and apple wood smoked ham with chips. Lots of Crabbies Ginger Beer. Oh yes! Then we passed out in the comfort of our down-filled bed. Huzzah to wedding day!

Day Three: 7/27/10 Tuesday

Tuesday July 27th, 2010

Well no photo shoot today. We woke up and sort of lounged around thinking we’d have the day for the shoot but ended up FINALLY getting ahold of our photographer who admitted he’d forgotten to change our date. So we’ll be doing the pictures tomorrow. That’s fine but it sort of shifted our schedule.

Nonetheless after wandering around Canterbury again, looking for the ruins of the St. Augustine Abbey, we came back, talked to Russ on the phone and then made our way to Dover.

We wanted to do the cliffs but couldn’t’ figure out how to get there, however we did do the Roman Painted house and the Dover Castle.

First the House:

Very quaint. Quiet, nobody in there. Nice old lady at the front desk who thought we didn’t speak English. I suppose that’s a plus but then again maybe it’s bad. Who knows.

The Roman Painted House is this fairly mid-sized, with the archaelogical ruins in the middle of the building. It was really cool. The painted walls are amazingly intact for a building that was made over 2000 years ago and the Roman fort wall that was left intact is really impressive. There was a lot of good info about the original dig and the stuff they found. We were actually able to touch the stuff but no pictures. So we bought the tour guide. I loved being able to put my hands on something that ancient people, Roman soldiers! may have touched.

Then we made our ungodly trek up the hills of Dover to the Castle. Oh my fucking god that was a harsh walk. Seriously the castle is located at about a million miles above sea level so it was entirely up hill. I mean we could have taken a bus but apparently we’re too cool for that so we walked it. Oh brother.

Nonetheless. Once we got up there, we did a mini-tour of the Wartime Tunnels, had a traditional English Tea Time, with scones, clotted cream, strawberry jam and Early Grey tea and then we hiked some more up the to the Castle proper. It was amazing. We took a load of pictures, found some weird hidey-holes in the Great Tower and I pretended to be back in medieval England. Grand time there.

After that we made our way back ‘home’ and decided that it was a damn shame that we hadn’t had a SINGLE pint since we woke up. Well we made up for that. Dinner at the Marlowe Café with a Tiger and a Kronenburg. Then it was off to the Café Belge where we got some proper beer. A Duvel and a Westmalle Triple. The poor waitress was apparently alone so she was sort of pissed that we only wanted beer (I mean isn’t the fact that we weren’t ordering food a plus, right?) but she made up for it by giving us free glasses of Bush Zalides(?) a 12% ale that tasted like pineapples.

Harsh harsh buzz there, I was so drunk it hurt. Had to come back to the B&B to take contacts out and put on glasses so I could see to walk down the street. Made it back to The Unicorn and had a helluva lotta beer. Found my favourite English beer so far, Crabbies, an alcoholic ginger beer. We sat outside in the beer garden and talked about our hereditary awesomeness and accents and then we stumbled back to have a nightcap at the B&B. Jason got a Spitfire and I got a Henney’s, an English cider that tasted just like a green apple jolly rancher.

Today was pretty vanilla in sightseeing terms, but we hardcored the tourist aspect of the day with all the pictures we took.

Tomorrow will be our ‘slow’ day, what with the wedding pictures and all, but it should still be fairly exciting.

Catch you later!

Day 2 (7/26/10)

Monday, July 26th, 2010.

Today started out early. I was so tired, apparently jet lag really hit me this time and even after 8+ hours of sleep I just wasn’t feeling it. Jason woke me up with the English Yo Gabba Gabba show, singing some shite about Nap Time and how awesome dreams are. Not the best subject matter for waking someone up, I’d say.

Finally we made our way to the train station, got round trip tickets from Canterbury to London and spent the next nearly 2hrs making our way to Charing Cross station. We found our way through that end of London fairly easily.

First stop was Trafalgar Square: lots of tourists, pigeons and the gigantic Lord Nelson statue. Also included was the National Gallery, where we saw loads of old stuff ranging from Botticelli, an amazing collection of Rembrandt including Belshazzar’s Feast, my personal favourite, and a portrait of Saskia in Arcadian Dress, also a self portrait and Woman Bathing. Good good stuff.

There was a ton of art in that museum. Ridiculous amounts of Italian work. Huge Canaletto’s, a great selection of Constable, the Hogarth Marriage satire series, some Jan Brueghel, Verrochios, Annibale Carraci’s Domine Quo Vadis, a personal highlight. I should have taken notes cause I can’t remember much more now. Will add more later if I remember. Turner’s Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus. A good selection of Manet, Monet  and Gauguin (before he turned into a Tahitian Twit). Also a HUGE biggie for me was the portrait of Banastre Tarleton by Reynolds. Oh huzzah.

Once that was done (2hrs!) we needed beer so we walked down Millbank St. and found The Red Lion pub. Pretty friendly though it felt like it was used to serving tourists and not locals. Nonetheless the beer was good and the staff friendly. Inside was very very Victorian in décor which I just loved.

Afterwards we wandered on down and found Downing Street, blocked off, of course, with lots of police guarding it. Would have liked to see Number 10 but it’s the White House of England so that makes sense that we couldn’t get close.

Further on down we came to Big Ben. LOADS of people, got our picture taken by some nice English couple who wanted a shot too for Christmas photos. We then went into Westminster Abbey/Cathedral where I got us a student discount (Score!) and took lots of ninja shots of Poet’s Corner. Extremely beautiful place. Made me cry by the end of it cause as we were leaving they were starting a sermon and the choir was singing. Churches are just cold buildings until filled with the sounds of human voices.

Otherwise we got to see the Oldest Door in England (big laugh there) and original medieval tile flooring in the Chapter House. Saw the effigies of Elizabeth 1 and Mary Queen of Scots. Saw a plaque for Anne of Cleves but I didn’t realize she was buried there. Probably not but who knows.

Afterwards we wandered up towards Parliament and got lots of great touristy shots with the building and the Thames and Big Ben. Next we trekked on down to the Tate Britain which was a LONG walk mind you, feet KILLING us by the time we got there. But it was so so so worth it. I didn’t realize the AMAZING collection of Pre-Raphaelite art they had at the Tate Britain and of course this was the museum that I boohooed in like a baby. We turn a corner and on the wall is Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott. I was sobbing. It was so amazingly gorgeous I couldn’t stand it. Then in the next room there was an amazing collection of Rosetti’s, Burne-Jones and Ford Maddox Browns. There’s was Mariana, and Ophelia and Jesus in the House of Joseph, The Annuciation and I can't remember anymore right now but I will definitely update when my brain clears a bit.

I was just a soppy mess by the time we left there. Jason was excited about the Francis Bacon room, though it didn’t really have much in it. Still it was cool to see. There was a study by Sargeant for Madame X, which was just gorgeous, lots more Gainsborough and Turner. I just fucking LOVE England’s museums. So jealous.

Well by the time we left we were so tired of walking and I was so hungry and dehydrated it just got a little grump-city by then. We couldn’t decide where to eat so we ended up having cheese & onion pasties in the train station. They were oh my god delicious! I can’t wait to eat more of them! There’s a pasty shop here in Canterbury that I want to try. Yum yum yum.

Once we got back ‘home’ we made our way to the Hobgoblin pub and had a few rounds. The place was pretty crowded, though everyone made their way to the back near the beer garden to smoke. We had a good time there. Will definitely go back for some food again. Had a chat with the girl bartender about how odd it is that we don’t tip here. I tipped her anyway after she said it’s not the typical thing here. I just felt guilty not tipping them!

So the day ended with us chilling out in the front room of the B&B, taking weird pictures and blogging.

Tomorrow is the photoshoot, hopefully, so we’ll see how that goes.

England: Day 1 7/25/10

From Columbia to Atlanta to London Gatwick = 14hours of airports, airplanes, and luggage. And that’s just the beginning.

I’ll skip all the “Oh flying on planes if fun but uncomfortable” blah blah blah crap and head right to the wonderful awesome that is carrying 80lbs of luggage all over the greater London area. One word will sum that up: LAME.

We finally get to our B&B in Canterbury around 1130am and then waited a bit so the staff could clean our room. I’d had enough sitting so I decided to take a solo walking tour of Canterbury. Jason stayed at the B&B reading some trashy English tabloid which he said was pretty funny.

I wandered around for a bit and then came back. We unpacked some, got clean cause OH MY GOD we felt like we’d been shoved into our luggage and stuffed under the plane with dirty farm animals for ten days.

Then I took Jason to the Wychwood Hobgoblin pub right up the road from our B&B. We both started with the Wychwood Hobgoblin which, of course, is 10x better on draught than it is in a bottle. We ordered our first food in England. Apparently the Hobgoblin pub has a Thai chef so there was a majority of Thai food on the menu. I got chicken satay and veggie spring rolls with a crazy awesome sweet chili sauce. Jason got the Hob Club Sandwich which was just a ham & swiss sandwich  but with the always heart healthy addition of two runny fried eggs on top, all served with fries. Not chips. These were plain old crinkle cut French fries.

The food was awesome and we finished the meal with Strongbow Cider on draught. Yet again better than in the bottle.

Apparently the dehydrating effect of flying and jet lag made me the cheapest date in the world because I was completely and utterly SMASHED after that. I was so drunk I could barely talk. It was kind of silly. So we came back to the B&B with the plan to only sleep about 30mins.

We ended up sleeping for almost 2hrs and were awakened by a group of ‘pilgrims’ singing Kyrie Eleason on their way to Canterbury Cathedral.

It was really hard for me to get up and going but once we did we toured the town, making our way along St. Dunstans street toward the Cathedral. That church is huge and old and so beautiful. We saw the pilgrims that woke us up, all carrying flags from the little towns they were from. About 40% of the church is under construction, as they are renovating and restoring the original stonework and medieval stained glass on the south east side. This unfortunately meant we couldn’t see the famous Occuli on the cathedral but it was great to read about the conservation efforts. Made me wish I was a stained glass expert so I could work on it too!

We wandered all over until we were hungry again then decided to drink first. We made our way back to our B&B and right up the road there’s a pub called The Unicorn. We went in and ordered a Kronenburg 1664 and I got a Master Brew, a Kentish ale that was surprisingly like a Newcastle. We sat out back in their beer garden and chatted about the gorgeous weather, stupid pigeons and ancient beers, finishing up with pints of Ringwood and Deuchars IPA.

A note on the beer: I had known in advance the beer wouldn’t be as cold as we are used to it in the States but I didn’t really believe that it’d be room temp. Well let me tell you, it’s pretty damn warm. Not hot, but not cold by any stretch of the imagination. It’s like when you take to long to drink a beer on a hot summer day and it gets all flat and tepid. It tasted fabulous mind you, but I’m just not used to it yet. You can get some beers here ice cold and the tap will say that. Jason’s Kronenburg was frigid and most Guinness taps say Ice Cold on them. Otherwise it’s all warm beer from here on out.

Our last meal of the day was authentic Fish and Chips from an eatery right next to our B&B. It was SO MUCH food it was ridiculous. Next time we’ll only order one and share. We got the cod and it was amazing.

We didn’t really do jack crap on our first day but travel and drink. That’s the best way to start a holiday I guess. more to come soon.

a Curious scene at the End

here is proof:
a shine of light in a darkened room
the creep of shadow upon soft skin
frail cloth dragged slowly across the bare floor

a dream:
sky above is classical blue
her form moves freely through wheat fields that extend
into infinity, that place just beyond sight
a glowing heat rises from the ground
and all around, the murmur of nostalgia

awake:
the eyes opened, reveal a dimmer scene
static edges and a haze of dark
hesitation charges the air

then:
bone upon flesh, reaches through the skin
deep tissue melts beneath the chill
a steady pulse strives and aches, bringing one last rush
the blood taints the pallor so desired
yet the thrill of capture soon arrives
a burst of phosphorus
the ancients sigh

a shadow shudders, the room is empty
flesh is for the earth
yet the soul is for eternity

his hunt complete.
the dream whispers
and dissolves

11/26/08 A. Walczesky

Flicker on...Flicker off....

Crickets are so effing loud.

Yet they make good industrial-strength white noise accompaniment to Wumpscut. The front door is propped open by a multi-colored russian lamp and the sounds of babylon fill the aural space of the porch.

Orange blossom incense and citronella candle keep the primitive winged vampires away while providing such a wonderful mixture of scents.

I've got a large glass of unsweetened tulsi tea mixed with Firefly vodka. I'm sure all health benefits typically reaped from the organic goodness of the tulsi are washed away in the tide of the sugary alcohol.

Above the treeline, which is partially obscured by the centuries old hickory trees in the front yard, there is an orange sherbet sunset fading up into a pink cotton candy haze.

In a small harbor of urban seclusion I feel alone and invisible. Pretending there is more nature than man, ignoring the occasional car that drives down my street, the thick drooping power lines dividing the sky in haphazard pop-art cutouts. People in workout clothes walking dogs and between song changes faroff wails of firetrucks.

On the porch, hidden from view. Only the lightning bugs exist in a more random state of motion and existence. Flicker on....flicker off.

Dry Thunder

If you consider the heat index it's been well over 105 for nearly 5 days now. Now, yes, this is at the peak of the heat during the middle of the afternoon, but nonetheless, that's hot.

This may sound like I'm complaining. On the contrary. I'm pretty tired of hearing people complain about the heat and it's not even officially summertime yet. This is why A/C was invented and if you can't afford that or yours doesn't work then perhaps living in SC isn't the best place for you, eh?

Right now it's thundering like mad. I remember nearly every summer you could 'look forward' to the endless pounding of a summer thunderstorm. For hours the rain would just pour down and the lightning and thunder would be chaos and fear and great beauty all mixed up. I enjoyed nothing more than reading Nancy Drew books in my den of a bedroom, head right next to the window, listening to the storm rage.

I would feel separate and distant from everyone and everything except the world in my book and the power of Nature outside. I think a lot of us still desire this sort of escape. Obligations and expectations and the money-driven cycle of adulthood seems to keep us from the intensity of wonder that, as adolescents/young adults we experienced nearly every day.

Now it takes sacrifice to indulge. Budgeting out a small parcel of your time to try and vanish, even for just a moment...

Ours No More

full with memory, a breathless time
we spent hours here
this room, this space holds the heat
    of nostalgia warming the floor
a past collective seething from the walls
illuminating the air
just a lingering spectre of decadence
    welling up around the corners
strange how the light fades
a rich liquid glow draining away
we sigh and step back
shattering the hypnosis
the resonance of human prescence
now a dying hum beneathe the dust
spent and failing
alone

--written sometime at beginning of 2009.

They Should Have Sent a Poet...

I spent the morning nervously waiting to head off with my mom and sister so I could try on and possibly buy my wedding dress. Finally the time came and we drove down to Bella Vista on Gervais St. where I had an 11 o'clock appointment.


I was strangely nervous. I don't know why. I guess it was because this was something I had never done before and I completely understood the importance of getting a dress that works.

Apparently I was also quite frantic over what type of underwear to wear, but that proved to be a pointless fret as the bridal consultant who helped me let me dress myself. Hooray for southern manners I suppose.

Now I know a lot of women are probably going to be a little aghast at what I'm about to say, but...

after 2 hours and only 10 dresses, I found the one.

I've heard stories about women shopping for months, trying on dozens and dozens of dresses.

I was not going to do that.

I didn't get my hopes up too high that I would find a dress at Bella Vista, and was completely prepared to try a few other places, but well...now I have a dress and it's just wowzers.

The whole time I tried on dresses, I reaffirmed something I had always known about my sense of style: what I love on paper/magazine/runway very seldom looks good on me. It's the ugly stuff that works.

Now don't get me wrong. This dress isn't ugly. It's just not at all what I had in mind. But it's perfect and I just knew it was the one. Besides it made my mama and sister cry. It was the only one that made them cry. So I guess it was a winner.

Well after all that, where I was rather reserved and not emotional at all, I came home.

I wanted to watch a movie and so I put in Contact.


I forgot how much I cry when I watch that film.

Apparently I had a whole bottle of emotions, fueled by stress and worry and it just pretty much exploded all over the pillow on the couch.

There's something about the hope and imaginative abandon that is required to understand our existence: it tears deeply at me.

I think my emotional state these days has quite a razor's edge and it's probably not a good idea to watch such desperately beautiful and poignant films.

So here's some pictures of space to make me happy.

Enjoy! The Star, Vega


The Lightning Galaxy


NGC 1672
a barred galaxy in the southern constellation Dorado

Like a Bullet From a Gun

"Hey Pretty, Pretty I'll send you straight to
hell I'll send you love letters like a bullet from a gun..."
---PWEI

There weren't many plans for this Memorial Day weekend other than enjoying the rain, sleeping late, and drinking a lot with friends. As much fun as all of that was, it was tainted slightly by the death of the infamous Dennis Hopper.

So to mourn properly, we decided to take inspiration from one of Hopper's most well-known roles (Frank Booth in Blue Velvet).

There was much silliness which I won't mention in a public forum, though dentists would understand. Then there was the re-enactment of a great line from Blue Velvet.

Appropriately we went to Art Bar and all together mourned the passing of one crazy ass fellow.


And so I had my first PBR.

I had sworn never to drink the piss-water of the Hipster Kingdom. I have standards. I'm a beer snob. But I broke my rule and had one for Dennis.

It wasn't that bad but really I don't understand what all the hype is about. Woo, cheap beer. Eh.

It does make for good photos though.

As for Dennis, he'll be missed.

--Manda

'These were the gentle words she said...' --LPD


As an introduction I think it's appropriate to begin mellow. Blogging typically brings out the comedian/whiner/philosopher in many and I will try my best not to indulge.

I'll try to be insightful. I'll occasionally put up my poetry and short stories. There will almost always be art and music.

I don't promise to be funny or witty. No politics, religion or major media coverage.

We'll pretend I'm writing letters. The way people used to a hundred years ago.

Let's see how this goes...