Wednesday, July 28, 2004
I have recently received several emails from you reader-folk who know that, since it's summer break, I am currently spending my days in the Boston area. You want to know if I'm one of those bloggers with 'official credentials' who are in the Democractic National Convention with the Real Reporters. The answer is, of course, "Ha ha ha! Ha ha! Hee hee. God, no."
Although I am flattered that people actually thought I would be covering the DNC from the inside, there are a few obstacles to this. One: I didn't even know about this whole 'bloggers with official press IDs' thing until after the Convention had already started. Two: Despite the name of this blog, I am not a terribly vociferous political activist. I am, yes, very thoroughly Democrat, I'm very much pro-choice, pro-gay marriage and all that, but for crissakes people. I've only been able to vote for a year.
Three: I. Am. Not. A. Professional. Writer.
I would feel extremely unqualified and very, very stupid getting into the DNC with a press pass simply because I have a blog and happen to be in the Boston area. Unless you count the 'Artvark' newsletter at the Arts at Tower summer camp a million years ago, and the occasional illustration for my high school paper, I have never done any work for a newspaper. As interesting as being at the DNC would be, as much as I would probably enjoy it, I really have no actual credentials that would make my presence there appropriate.
If you want a list of the bloggers who are there, you should have a look at the Blogger list of Boston DNC bloggers.
Of course, this doesn't mean that I didn't somehow get my sticky little paws into the whole event.
I may not be anything remotely approaching a writer, but I can make some mild sort of claim for being an artist. Not a particularly good one, and not a particularly successful or widely-known one, but as I'm still a student we'll let it slide. So. Since I wasn't going to be going to the DNC as a writer or a political commentator, why not go as an artist?
On Monday I packed up my sketchbook, pencils, and pens, drove out to Wonderland (where the auxiliary parking lot was crowded, but not entirely full) and hopped onto the blue line. There were a couple of policefolk at the turnstiles, but no one was checking bags that I could see (and I had my great big backpack on).
I got off at Government Center and trotted down to Faneuil Hall to see what there was to see. I had a vague idea of sitting somewhere and drawing all the crazy people who were walking around. Most unfortunately, I had made the mistake of showing up right around noon. Faneuil Hall is crowded during lunchtime under normal circumstances; the media tents and crowds of people handing out Kerry stickers made it worse.
So I wasn't in Faneuil Hall for a very long time. I got a delicious overpriced coffee beverage from Starbucks, and had a long chat with an older gentleman wearing a 10-gallon hat and a 'Texans for Kerry' pin, which was interesting. Although, when you think about it, there have to be some people in Texas who are for Kerry. He was complaining about the weather, which he said was cold. It was in the 70s. Since I apparently had 'college student' written all over me, he asked where I went. I told him Michigan, and we spent a lively 10 minutes chatting about the joys of being liberal in a decidedly non-liberal place. For him, the entire state of Texas. For me, the entire state of Michigan sans Ann Arbor. And maybe Detroit.
After deciding that this was the most Faneuil Hall had to offer that day, I dashed back into Government Center and departed for my default sitting-and-drawing-stop in Boston, i.e. Copley. I should note that the security in Government Center, being near City Hall and relatively near the FleetCenter, was impressive. There were MPs with submachine guns, regular Boston police, some people in army uniforms, and the Transit Security people, who came as something of a surprise. I had expected Transit Security to just be regular T employees wearing bright orange vests or something that declared their official presence. Instead I got a bunch of serious-looking people dressed in crowd-control black, with boots and bullet-proof vests and lots of guns and things. Woah. Subway cops to the max.
Faneuil Hall at dusk. I do love the place, for all its inherent tourist-y kitsch.
At Copley I set up shop on a bench by the little lawn in front of Trinity Church. On this lawn were the Falun Gung and Falun Dafa people, who were protesting the fact that China apparently likes suppressing and killing them, and the fact that I may have misspelled their names. You probably know who they are. They sit still in one position for a really long time, and sometimes do slow and graceful tai chi-like routines. There's usually one of them sitting in the Diag at U of M, with a sign explaining why he's protesting. I'm always impressed when they do this on the really cold days. But I digress.
I set about drawing Trinity Church with an inky vengeance and the full expectation of sitting there for several hours. It was pretty noisy, since every five minutes or so a police car would go screaming by with the sirens on, and numerous helicopters kept flying around overhead (or the same helicopter kept making passes, who knows). Occasionally a vehicle decked out in DNC-related goodness would drive by and honk madly to get everyone's attention. My favorite of these was a truck carrying a giant stick, atop which rested Bush's head sporting a moronic expression. The sides of the truck were emblazoned with the address Pants on fire.net.
After I had been sitting there for about an hour, a group of three Vietnamese children somewhere between the ages of 8 and 4 came by, carrying a big tray of complicated origami flowers with tags telling you about the trials and tribulations of Falun Dafa practitioners in China. They were offering these flowers to everyone in the area, saying "For you!" and generally being the cute small non-English-speaking children who will tug at your heartstrings and win you over to their cause. They handed me one, for which I thanked them. They then caught sight of the drawing I was working on.
Now, these poor kids must have been bored out of their brains. Their parents were clearly spending all day sitting on the lawn in front of the Trinity Church, and the kids were left to run around and amuse themselves as best they could without leaving the area. Apparently watching someone sit and draw widdly little ink lines for hours and hours on end is more interesting than watching your parents sit motionless for hours and hours, because the oldest little girl ensconced herself on the bench next to me and leaned over to watch me draw, with the other two dangling over my shoulders. They did this for almost exactly three hours.
Not consecutively, of course. They would jump up at intervals to offer more flowers to people, or to run around on the lawn and poke people they presumably knew. But then they would come right back over. They didn't know much english at all, past "It's beautiful!", "For you!", and "Thank you!", and I clearly didn't a speak a word of Vietnamese or Chinese, but they seemed perfectly content to sit there and watch me draw, leaning all over me and marvelling at the fact that some of my hair was purple. I felt like I'd been adopted by these three kids for the afternoon, which was decidedly odd, but not altogether unpleasant, since they did let me get on with the drawing. After I'd finished all the pencilling and had gone entirely over to pen I let them play with my kneaded eraser, which fascinated them. The oldest one (who looked around 8) made little sculptures of ducks out of it.
Since I was sitting there for around three and a half hours, many people ended up eventually talking to me. I had a long conversation with a woman sitting on the bench next to me, who had a son who was going into his freshman year at UMass (again, I apparently have 'college student' stamped on my forehead). A lot of the Falun Gung/Dafa people kept coming over and saying things like "Oooh, that very nice! You have such good vision!", which I took as a compliment on the drawing and not my eyesight (which, for the record, officially sucks at 20/500).
I also had a lot of people come up and ask me if I was with the Falun Gung/Dafa people. This was due, no doubt, to a combination of the fact that I had these three little girls all over me, and the fact that I was wearing a tshirt in exactly the same shade of bright yellow as the Falun folk. A happy coincidence made possible by the University of Michigan color scheme.
Around hour 2 one of the Boston police officers who was beadily watching Copley Square came over and expressed his admiration of my rather overwrought doodle. I thanked him and we chatted for a bit. He asked if the kids were mine, to which I replied that they were not, but they appeared to have adopted me for the time being. We then talked about how the protesters were behaving throughout the city ('It wasn't bad this weekend, but they're starting to get a little hairier now') and how the media was affecting things ('It's not bad out here, but I wouldn't want to be stationed up by City Hall right now'). It was very pleasant.
So, one size two micron pen and several unwelcome hours of sun exposure later, I separated my reluctant posterior from the bench, retrieved my kneaded eraser, and made my way to my dad's building. He was leaving work early and had said he would drive me out of the city to Wonderland. I was waiting outside his building, watching the road in front of it, when a cavalcade of large trucks came by. They were broadcasting something or other from loudspeakers, but I wasn't really listening. As they drove by it became clear that the images on the sides were not innocuous pictures of produce or donuts, but were instead large, technicolor pictures of bloody fetuses (fetusi?). Yum. The anti-abortion lobby has such subtlety.
As we were walking to his car we also were treated to the sight of a small white convertible car driven by a perfectly normal person. In the backseat were a large carrot and a large ear of corn. Waving. The side of the car said to vote for someone or other whose last name was Carrot. We waved back at them. Naturally.
So, while perhaps not the typical DNC experience, I certainly had my own obscure level of involvement with the madness. I plan to head back into town tomorrow and this time actually draw people. Hopefully I will steer clear of small children. Charming as they may have been for one afternoon, I have no particular desire to repeat the experience.
I shall close with a fascinating little tidbit I came across today during lunch.
According to a recent New Yorker article by Lawrence Wright, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades (which isn't Al Qaeda, but claims affiliation with them) sent a message to a London newspaper. In this letter they claimed responsibility for a train bombing in Spain that was one of the worst acts of terrorism in recent Spanish history. The letter also says that "We are very keen that Bush does not lose the upcoming elections," as his "idiocy and religious fanaticism" are useful for "stir[ring] the Islamic world to action."
So, apparently, a vote for Bush is a vote for the terrorists. Just a little something to think about.
5:22 PM
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Two movies in two nights. IF I HAVE TO SEE ONE MORE ADVERTISEMENT FOR C2 (THAT FRELLING CALORIE-SHORT KIND OF COKE) I AM GOING TO KILL SOMEONE.
Ahem.
Catwoman I saw last night with Corey, Kate, and Jason. It was bad. It was worse than bad. We went to see it in the firm expectation that it was going to be bad, and still we were shocked by its level of badness. The opening sequence detailed the history of the Egyptian Mau cat, and was so inexplicable and poorly done that I wanted to throw something at the screen. Literally. I had to use my left hand to restrain my right hand from flinging loose change at the screen.
Things deteriorated from there.
The director (Pitof... you know you're in trouble when the director only has one name) appeared to favor big panning shots of buildings right before a scene took place inside said buildings. City. Pan. Building. Tilt. Pan. Tilt. Actual scene. Another shot of the city. Pan. Building. Tilt. Pan. Tilt. Actual scene. Again. And again. It would have maybe, maybe been cool once. More than three times, unfortunately, it wasn't.
Why, in the name of all that's feline, Egyptian Maus? The Egpytian Mau, according to this movie, is supposed to be some sort of mystical cat with, um, powers. To bring Halle Berry back to life. And to make a whole series of catwomen throughout the ages, who embrace the inherent 'duality of women', their natural 'submissiveness and wildness'. Every age in history must have a lady in a scanty (for her time) outfit and a catty career of freedom and crime. Or something.
If you're willing to accept that (which I tend to think no one in their right mind would do... not even when you're trying to suspend disbelief enough to watch the movie), it still does not explain the Mau. Did they pick just because it has 'Egyptian' in the name? I mean, cripes, if they wanted a cool cat they should've used a Siamese. Or any Oriental Shorthair, really, they're all elegant and slinky and would be much more suited for this than a Mau, which has a lovely gray-spotted coat but a fairly rounded and unremarkable build. Heck, they would've been better off with a Sphynx, except for the unfortunate Austin Powers references.
Perhaps, for the sake of the movie, one would be willing to believe that Berry's transformation into Catwoman gave her catlike powers of agility and and heightened senses. Maybe. They still don't explain her ability to climb sheer walls as effectively as Spiderman. Or her suddenly ability to play basketball really, really well. I kid you not. There's a basketball scene. Now, the cats I've known have had certain levels of agility and grace (except for the really clumsy ones), but none of them have had any innate ability to handle a basketball. So far as I know.
I'm not even going to get into the... outfit they have Berry wearing for this, except to say that the mask, in profile, makes her nose look incredibly snub. Like a pug. Or persian, if you will. If I started in on the rest of the outfit we'd be here all night.
The CG scenes with the cat are, to put it mildly, pathetic. The hippogriff in Harry Potter was infinitely more convincing than this. The supporting cast was, to put it mildly, pathetic. We've got the spunky overweight friend, the spunky gay friend, the (sort of) hunky yet empty-headed Benjamin Bratt, the rich and scruple-less villains. It's all so blatantly unoriginal that it almost defies description.
The music.... the music. The music. I can't... even... think about... the music right now. I might be ill.
Suffice it to say that this was an awful movie. A dreadful movie. It was right up there with Swimfan and Swept Away. The legacy of Batman Returns and Michelle Pfeiffer and Eartha Kitt and Bob Kane has been tainted. It was kind of funny to watch it, because Corey, Jason and I made snide and horrified comments throughout the entire thing, but unless you have friends who will do exactly the same, DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE. It is a waste of your money. People got up and left in the middle of it, and if we hadn't been so determined to sit it out and make fun of it, we would've done the same.
Interlude!
These two crazy trees are on Plum Island. It's a bizarre little place, and these are some bizarre little trees. Toss in the fact that the sun was setting in such a spectacular way, and I just had to take a picture.
Back on movies.
Tonight I saw The Bourne Supremacy with Kate, Helene, and Jess. Because all our male friends are off proving their manliness by climbing up a mountain in a manly way, waving their manly hunting knives, swilling their manly beer, grilling their manly steak tips. Yup. We spent the evening ogling Matt Damon. *thumbs up*
This, in stark contrast to Catwoman, was a very good movie. An excellent movie, even. Not only is Matt Damon extremely easy on the eyes, he also acts his way through this movie with a deft skill that makes you realize this isn't just some sort of Vin Diesel action flick. XXX it ain't.
It is about as intelligent as any movie of this sort can be. It is fast-paced, but not to the point where the audience gets lost. The hand-held camera technique is very effective, if a little nauseating at times. The action is quick and harsh and cool. It's also relatively believeable. It's unlikely that one could drive as well as Damon does after getting shot in the shoulder, or that the Russian taxi he's driving would hold up for so long under the beating it takes, but when all is said and done the movie does a pretty good job of keeping things as realistic as they can. Bourne jumps onto a boat from a great height, and limps throughout the rest of the movie. He doesn't look particularly battered at the end, but he doesn't look entirely unruffled either, and that's good enough for me.
The phone call scenes made me hop around in my seat happily. Good. Stuff.
I don't want to say too much more, in deference to those who haven't seen it yet. And you ought to go see this movie. GO SEE IT. It's a very, very entertaining movie that doesn't make you feel stupid for being entertained by it. And, you know, Matt Damon. Good actor. Attractive. Bostonian! That should be sufficient for all.
Speaking of Bostonian, how about those Red Sox tonight, eh? Coming from behind to beat the Yankees. This is the sort of thing we like to see here. More of this! More of this! Lowe is pitching tomorrow night, so you all need to go pray or dance or do whatever it is you do when your beloved team needs a big dose of Help in a fast and immediate way.
The DNC (Democractic National Convention) has sort of already started, but I think it doesn't techincally get going until Monday. Boston is going to be a wreck. Numerous highways are being shut, numerous commuter rails are being shut, parts of the T are being shut down. On the parts of the T that are running, random bag checks are being done. Every form of media you can imagine is supposed to be congregating at Fanueil Hall.
I plan to go in at least one day to do some people drawing. Hopefully I won't look too suspicious, sitting on a bench somewhere for a few hours, staring at people and drawing them. Hee hee. Ah well, the worst that could happen is that a cop could come over and ask me to leave. So I go somewhere else. No problem.
If anyone would like to join me for drawing fun in the massive crowds, you're more than welcome to do so.
OK, I'm pretty thoroughly exhausted now and ought to get to sleep. If you haven't heard any of the songs by Harry and the Potters, you're missing out. Utterly hilarious. They played 'The Weasel' on FNX, and I almost fell off the bed for sheer laughter. I wish I had heard of them when they were playing somewhere relatively close to here. Although they're coming back in early August. Does anyone know if the Middle East is an 18-and-up club, or a 21-and-up club?
I sleep now.
12:06 AM
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Ah ha ha ha! *wipes tears from eyes* Google, I love you.
1. Go to www.google.com
2. Type in the following phrase: weapons of mass destruction
3. Click 'I'm feeling lucky'. NOT 'Google search'
4. Read it and giggle. Click the links too, while you're at it.
I also just saw 'The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra', which is an amazing movie. It's a spoof of every bad sci fi/horror movie made in the 50s. It appears to have had a budget of something like $100 and a crew of maybe 5. I laughed far, far too many times.
Any movie that involves a fight sequence between a man in a terrible 'mutant' suit and a plastic skeleton, a woman formerly made of 'four different forest animals', and aliens named Lattis and Kro-Bar is OK in my books.
"Do you know what this meteor could mean to Science? It could mean actual advances to the field of Science!"
"Gee, I hope they won't mind us putting radioactive meteors from space on their china!"
"Ha ha ha!"
"Ha ha!"
"Seriously, we'll clean the plates before we go."
Additionally! Baby in Space! (the baby will not just explode)
11:31 PM
Friday, July 16, 2004
Aargh. Not only have I not posted anything here in ages, I just had a new entry half-written and the computer froze on me. *insert quiet swearing here*
Weebl might have lost it finally. If so, thank god. In the glorious internet tradition of his classic creations such as BadgerBadgerBadger and Come to Kenya, we are presented with the musical stylings of Magical Trevor. Everyone loves Magical Trevor 'cause the tricks that he does are ever so clever. Look at him now, disappearing a cow. Where is the cow headin' right now? Where indeed?
Ryan Estrada proved to the world that he is truly insane. 24 hour comic day is the annual attempt of comic book artists everywhere to write and draw 24 pages in 24 hours. This means no sleep, no rest, and lots of drawing. Most people either wimp out partway through, or go the full 24 hours but still end up with less than 24 pages. For those who have no personal experience of such things, it takes a lot of work to make a finished comic book page. Under normal circumstances I'm lucky to get one finished (written, pencilled, inked-- not colored, that takes longer) in 2 or 3 days, and usually it takes longer than that. So 24 pages in 24 hours is quite the feat.
But Ryan laughs at the limitations of us mere mortals! No paltry 24 hour comic day for him! He recently became the first person in recorded history to ever attempt the imposing 48 hour comic day. That is to say, 48 pages in 48 hours. And by Cats, he finished it. A few hours early. With no coffee. The man is a miracle in artist-form. I still don't know how he survived it, unless it was just through sheer bloody-mindedness. I don't think I would be capable of coherent speech after being awake for 48 hours straight, let alone steady inking ability.
Anyways, he made sure to chronicle the event for posterity, and it makes for a good read. He quotes people with whom he spoke about the event before it happened throughout his little journal. If you scroll down a bit, I'm quoted in there. Calling him crazy. I hold to that assessment, but we can throw some awe and admiration in with it now.
-------------
Lessee, interesting things that have been happening. Jess and I went to a Red Sox game. It was ace, they won 11-2. They were my dad's seats (he usually goes with my brother, but he was out of town for work that night), so they were really close to the field, right on the third base line. Niiice. I ate a Fenway frank, and was extremely proud of myself for not getting sick afterwards. If you've never had one, they are possibly the most undercooked hotdogs in baseball. They're also quite famous. Jess did the sensible thing and had a giant pretzel.
Here we are, decked out in our Bostonian finery, with the beauty of Fenway in the background.
The ride back from the game was uneventful, other than some minor issues navigating the crowd and the construction at Kenmore. The ride there, however, was marked by quite an Incident. We were stopped at the light on whatever street it is when you first pull out of the Nahant rotary and are headed to Wonderland. A couple of kids on motorcycles pulled up in the lane next to us. We noticed them right away because one was wearing a helmet that looked like an old WWII helmet, and not at all safe for motorcycling.
We noticed them a lot more when, for no readily apparent reason, a man suddenly darted out into the middle of the street, stood directly in front of the motorcycle driven by the kid with the funky helmet, and started wildly berating him. Scary. Scarier still was when the light turned green. The kid tried to edge his bike around the crazy man. Crazy was having none of it, so he sat on the front of the kid's motorcycle. Eek. At this point the light had been green for a bit, and the kid was probably (understandably) freaking out a bit. So he shoved the crazy guy. Hard. Crazy goes right over onto the pavement, and the kids tear out. Worrying all 'round, really.
Anyways, I took some pictures, which may be found in this here album. Captioned for your comprehension and amusement.
Another good time which yielded some nice photos was the Revolutionary war reenactment in Marblehead. Apparently they do it every year, but this was the first time I had gone. It was a really lovely day out, and they were having the reenactment at Fort Sewall, which is literally right on the harbor. It's done by the 14th Continental Glover's Marblehead Regiment. They set up a bunch of tents in the fort, and they live there for a few days, all wearing Revolutoinary-period clothing and eating over food cooked over fires in pits in the ground and shooting rifles at each other at intervals.
It wasn't all older people, as you might expect. There were a bunch of kids my age (read: college or late high school) who were into it, and there were a lot of little kids too. Their parents or grandparents are in it, and the kids get into it too. It was a ridiculously good time. My mother and I wandered around and looked in the fort and the tents and things, and then we climbed the little hill to get to the other side of the fort, where the 'British' were camped out. We had a really long conversation with two of them about guns and historical restoration of houses that was surprisingly pleasant.
Pictures from this may be found right around here. There are some shots of Marblehead harbor in there, because it was just such a nice day out. Also captioned, For Your Reading Pleasure.
-------------
Hm. According to the Sorting Hat, I belong in Ravenclaw  . Overwhelmingly so. It's like a personality test, but it's really serious and scientific, with 112 questions and a detailed scoring system. The breakdown for me was as follows:
Gryffindor: 57
Ravenclaw: 81
Hufflepuff: 59
Slytherin: 56
and now that I've taken it, I can see how that would be a pretty accurate assessment. I was as honest as possible on the responses, and this seems right. I mean, if there was such a thing as a Sorting Hat, and the houses were as they are described in the book, I think I probably would fit best in Ravenclaw. There's no one house that seems to emphasize artistic nature more than the other, but that's sort of immaterial, since it seems rather appropriate that someone who has 'research zoology' as one of their overwhelming passions in life would get put in Ravenclaw.
Go take the test, you lazy sods. You know me, I never put things like this on here (while other bloggers post every damn quiz known to man on their blogs.. *cough*Chris*cough*), so you know it's quality. And answer honestly, otherwise it's no damn fun. Then tell me what house you got in, so I can mock you appropriately.
-------------
MassArt has been treating me well so far, other than the sheer horror of getting out of bed at 6 am every. single. morning. so that I can get there in time for a 9 am class. I start going batshit insane if I'm waiting at Government Center and every train except for the E-line has come twice already (which happens sometimes) and it looks like I'm going to get there at 9:15. I haven't quite worked out why this is, as the class has about 20 people in it and there are usually only 5 or 6 at 9.... people routinely waltz in late. Not just 10 or 15 minutes late either. I mean to say that people routinely come in at 10, 10:30. For a 9 am class. Granted, it's a four hour class, but still. To miss an hour or more of it seems excessive. And I refuse to even be a minute late. I'm going to give myself ulcers one day.
I can already definitely tell that the anatomy stuff we're learning has been helpful for me. I now know all the artistically-important (i.e. visible) muscles of the leg: how to draw them, where they are, and what their names are. And it's ever so nice to be doing drawing from models over the summer. Life drawing is the greatest. I miss it when I go too long without it.
The models we've had so far are pretty good. We did the skeleton for most of the first week, so we had this obscenely skinny model in. You could see her ribcage most alarmingly when she did poses lying down. Then we moved on to muscles and mostly have been having this guy, Paul. His forms are amazing, all really defined and whatnot, but the man cannot hold still. I suppose it would be one thing if he had to stretch out during the half-hour or longer poses, but he can't keep from fidgeting for the 5 minute ones. For cat's sake, the guy's getting paid for two things: his willingness to be naked in front of a bunch of people who will scrutinize his flesh for 4 hours, and his ability to hold still. You'd think it would be the least he could do.
My classmates are eclecticly delightful. Dana is the 27-year-old who's taking the class because her fiance is working in Boston over the summer and she figured if she was going to be around she might as well take classes. We take the green line back after class together, so we chat quite a bit. She's very nice, but seems perpetually amazed that I'm going to be a sophomore in college. Apparently, I "sound much older than that... like someone really dry and sarcastic and in their 30s." That's a direct quote. Don't ask me, I have no idea.
Lisa is a lady in her 40s (I think) who started talking to me in class one day when she saw the Michigan Wolverines pin I have on my backpack. Turns out she just recently moved to Boston, and before that she had lived in Ann Arbor. So we discuss that. She also never has a pencil sharpener, oddly.
-------------
The T (subway) has been exceedingly interesting. This very morning I got out of my car at Wonderland to hop on the blue line, and who should I see but the diminuitive and vivacious Mrs. Green (my teacher in freshman high school history... now she's moved up in the ranks and will be teaching, among other things, AP history)! Turns out she has a paid fellowship to do historical research at one of the big historical societies in downtown Boston this summer. That's like someone paying me to study the behavior and habits of caracals over the summer. In other words, if it's your kind of thing, it's heaven.
We had a lovely long chat about the ol' high school, what I got up to at U of M, what research she was doing for the fellowship, and South Africa. When she heard that one of my majors was zoology she insisted that I go to Krueger National Park in South Africa. Apparently she has family out there and I would be allowed to spend jewish holidays with them :) Heh. But it is supposed to be just an amazing park. And it's not jungle, so maybe the mosquitos wouldn't be as bad as they would be in, say, Madagascar. Tempting though the lemurs are, I'm not so sure a jungle climate is for me.
A few days ago, on the blue line home, a man got on with a snake. A boa constrictor, to be precise. She was only 2 months old, so she was pretty small.... probably only about a foot and a half long. And it's not as though they're poisonous. But it still didn't strike me as something you were particularly allowed to take on the T. Oh well. We chatted for almost the entire ride (he got off two stops ahead of me). I had been able to see she was a boa constrictor when he first brought her on because boas have a really distinctive head shape. But I asked him about what he was feeding her and where he was keeping her and how big she would get and whatnot. I'm not sure it's a good idea to keep snakes as pets, but this guy at least seemed like a very knowledgable owner who genuinely loved snakes. So, it was lovely.
-------------
OK, I'm tired. That'll have to hold you until the next. I'll make a conscious effort to update more often, I promise. There's a brunch at Noah's mother's house on Sunday, so at the very least I should have something to say about that.
Goodnight, all.
11:49 PM
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Tantalizing as this is, it still isn't the proper post (i.e. the long overdue one containing movie reviews and tales from the Cape). I just have a little time to burn before Jess picks me up so that I can go to Wonderland for the third freaking time today. And then, of course, the Sox game. We crushed the A's 11-0 last night, so perhaps we shall see good things today.
Today on the T (that's the subway, for non-Massachusettian readers) into Boston I met a lovely lady. She got on a couple of stops after I did and sat down next to me. I had my giant newsprint sketchpad awkwardly propped up against my seat, so she asked if I was an art student. Yes. Yes I am. Anywho, she was quite gregarious and we ended up chatting the entire way there. She was going in for a job interview, she has a son a couple years older than me and a daughter who's pregnant with her second child (the first one is named Sophie). It was really exceedingly pleasant, and I directed her to the proper green line when we got to Government Center and yay! Meeting nice people on the T! It's stupid, but it made me happy.
(Her name was Debbie)
I can't tell if it's because I went to bed early last night (midnight... unheard of for me) or because I stopped to get coffee this morning (at Starbucks... naturally I pass 3 or 4 Dunkin' Donuts on my way to Wonderland, and naturally I have to go out of my way to get Starbucks. Ann Arbor has spoiled me rotten), but I didn't fall asleep once today in class! That's the first time I've made it the whole way through without snoozing. Yeah, it's a four hour class without any breaks, but it still goes by lightyears faster than calculas classes (which were only 3 and a half hours) did. The problem is that it starts at 9 am, which means I've been up since a little after 6 am. Mornings are not my thing.
It's a Life Drawing and Anatomy class, by the by, which means that for the past few days we've been drawing from the skeleton. Exciting stuff. I like it, it means I get to brush up on my skulls. Which is very, very good for ze comic book dorkiness. Tomorrow we have our first model come in, and after that I think we have models most days. Life Drawing is one of my favorite things to do in art school. I can't get credit for this class, even though it's at a damn good art school (Massart, doncha know), so I'm taking it just because otherwise I wouldn't be able to do any drawing from live models this summer. Unless someone I know wouldn't mind posing nude, which I somehow doubt would be a viable option.
Anywho, I finished my work a bit early today and got kind of bored, so I scrawled upon my own self. One of these days I'm going to get ink poisoning. I got a lot of stares on the T ride back. I think people thought I had some insane kind of tattoo.
Since, you know, I already had skeletal anatomical structure on the brain.
One of the women in my class (I am correct in saying 'woman'... I think she's in her 40s) asked to borrow my pencil sharpener today, and in the process of reaching over to do so saw the Michigan Wolverines pin I have on my backpack. So she asked if I was from Michigan. I explained that I was from around here in the jolly ol' East, but attended school at U of M. "Oh!" she said. "Because I just moved here from Ann Arbor!"
Cue happy chatter about the second best college city in the US. The best, of course, being Boston. I mean, Ann Arbor is a pretty good place to be at college, but you can't really compare to Boston. New York, in my humble opinion, is too damn big. Plus their subway system is incomprehensible.
I am now going to go scrobble with art markers until it is time to leave for the game. I will be hideously Red Sox-ed out with bright red pants, a Lowell Spinners tshirt (class A Red Sox team, playing in Lowell, MA), and my Red Sox hat. I am clearly cooler than cool. What's cooler than bein' cool? Liquid nitrogen! Yes. Er. Go team.
4:32 PM
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Gah! Proper post soon, I assure you. I've seen Farenheit 9/11, Spiderman 2, and Coffee and Cigarettes since I last wrote. Not to mention renting Gothika for the sheer horror of it all (and I don't mean that in a scary-movie sense).
The Cape was great, much fun and good eatin' was had. I swear on cats that I will write about all of these things soon, but not tonight because I am ALL TEH EXHAUSTED. The drawing classes at MassArt are going OK so far, but they have me getting up around 6:15 in the am, which means I am ruined for everything later in the day.
Probably no update tomorrow, because Jess and I are slated to go to the Red Sox game! That, plus the early morning class, might render me insensible for several days. We'll see.
To tide you over, have this Spiderman picture I drew because I felt like it. Then I colored it in Photoshop, just to see if it was possible with no equipment fancier than a laptop trackpad.
The background's crappy. Ignore it, if you will.
Spiderman copyright Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, and whoever else wants to lay claim to him. Not me. I just draw him for kicks.
OK, it is time to watch Queer Eye. Then the Daily Show. Then sleep. Blessed, early sleep. Post soon, I swears it!
9:57 PM
|
|
