Stella Sofia Moody

Wow I won a giveaway from With Two Cats! I can't believe it;this is so exciting!  The giveaway is for a beautiful tile made by Sadie Ryan Keepsake Tiles. This is also a good chance to explain why we haven't posted in so long: we made a baby!  Stella Sofia is five months old now, and it seems like she changes every day. Thanks again, Lauren, for the giveaway!  I'll post a picture of the birth announcement tile soon!

Wedding Dress Leaves

We've been very busy which is why this blog has been so quiet. In fact Christian is too busy with exam reading, novel writing, short story revising, and Cincinnati Review work to post here at all, so I'll be doing my best (probably until after he takes his exams) to cobble together some words to accompany the new things I have to show you!

First up the aforementioned dress made out of leaves project.  This project had two origins: 

1) I wanted to create a series of illustrations around the theme of weddings; this idea turned into weddings which took place in "exotic" locals.  Some of my ideas/drawings included locations like the top of a traveling train, "parachuting" through the sky, on the ocean, and in a tree. The wedding in a tree was my favorite location, and for some reason included camouflage wedding attire, which ultimately lead to the idea of a dress made of leaves.

2) Last fall Christian and I were lamenting how quickly all of the colorful Autumn leaves fell to the ground.  We hypothesized about who might be cruelly plucking the leaves from the trees and how wasteful it was to leave them all on the ground.  This of course led me back to the dress made of leaves and eventually to how three resourceful and creative young girls might find a use for these pretty leaves.  Unfortunately, these young and inexperienced adolescents don't realize that they need to patiently press the leaves before sewing them into that dress...it surely will wither too quickly for repetitive wear!

Fake Bee Exam

Wow, what a lazy, lazy blogger I am.  Randi finished this sketch a while ago, and I know all of our two readers (Hi, Sam! Hi, Elizabeth!) have been foaming at the mouth to see it.  I’m supposed to do the words on this here blog, and I’ve been remiss. What can I say? I’m a schmuck. But our loyal readers are well aware of that.

About the sketch: If you remember, or if you read the last post, we were restricted to the words bear, aviator, hat.  Randi’s been working on building a portfolio of children’s book illustrations of late, and you can definitely tell that this sketch is geared toward that end.  My sole contribution is the vehicle—well, I muttered something about a foot and a spring.  Then Randi turned it into this much cooler vehicle you see above, which flies much higher than I imagined (what I came up with was something like a huge pogo stick).  I think I also suggested something to do with the bear’s teeth and level of scariness.  Bravo to me, then, for pretty much nothing!

So, if this were a children’s book, what would the story be? I think you should write it, or at least tell me your idea.  Where would a bear and a kid be going in this spring-footed bird thing-a-bob? What would you call such a contraption?  (I’m trying to get at least one stranger to post on my blog before I die. A pathetic goal, but it would make me happy. For a moment. Then I would feel weird and go hide).

Fun factoid: the sketch above was supposed to be a quick drawing of a bowler hat.  Just a simple hat to tide our two readers over until the real sketch was done.  But Randi never stopped working on the temporary sketch. Then she erased the bowler hat (it was on the bear). The real sketch had to do with a weird kid in a bee costume (long story), but the fake sketch took over and became the real one. It happens.  Someday maybe we’ll get back to the weird bee-kid drawing. 

Next up, we think we’re going to do a short comic book.  We aim to post at least a few panels up before the end of the holidays, and we’ll use our usual three-word restriction to come up with the idea.  We’ve been reading a bunch of comics of late.  Highlights include: Rabbit Head, Optic Nerve, The Umbrella Academy, Kim Deitch’s Midgetville, Anders Nilsen’s Big Questions—and many more.  We’re still dilettantes, but we’re going to give it a shot anyway.

In other news, Randi is drawing something to do with a dress made out of leaves, among other projects.  And the reason I’ve been remiss in my duties here is that I’m reading for PhD exams. 180 books by the end of May (waa hoo!).  A few recent highlights: Crowley’s Little, Big; Coover’s Pricksongs and Descants; Diaz’s Oscar Wao; Faulkner. And a bunch of critical stuff from which I’m supposed to postulate notions about realism, naturalism, modernism, postmodernism, and so on.  So, two loyal readers, you won't hear from me again until June, when I’m done postulating. (Kidding).

Seriously, though:  The idea behind this blogxperiment—even if we can’t remember why we came up with the idea—is to generate our three words in the weirdest way possible.  We’ll use those three words to make our comic. Ideas?

Peacock Spirit Society

Sticking to our macabre theme, we clipped words from the Sunday newspaper obituary pages.  We also listed all of the Halloween costumes and accessories that we spotted over the weekend.  We placed them in two bowls and picked one word out of each.  We already had "bear" from our traipse through the cemetery. The result:

aviator    bear        hat

bear         hat          aviator

hat           aviator   bear

Uh-oh. Are we in trouble, or are we okay? What sentences can we generate from these words? What images? What stories? We'll work on it, but give us a little while.  In the meantime, if you have ideas let us know: We might need to steal them.

"Aviator" came from the obituaries.

"Hat" was originally "bowler hat," but I shortened it for the simplicity of three words.  It might still end up as a bowler, which is a fine type of hat indeed. Our good friend Sarah Leah dressed up as Charlie Chaplin for Halloween. She was awesome.

Costume words in the bowl that we missed out on: elf, angel wings, bats, stethoscope, balloons, surgeon, suit, eye patch, paper bag, feathers, suspenders, Pocahontas, glasses, bubbles, faun, dinosaur, tiger, wig, fur pants, peacock, bunny, pirate, cheerleader, pom pom.

Obituary words we missed out on: star, grateful, spring, hero, station, sympathy, work, hatched, society, chapel, short, sons, death, illness, friends, road, spirit, agencies, teacher, deeply, home, died, grandchildren, flowers, garden, leaf, gate, poor, football, attack, fireman, fallen, visitation, camp, club. Some of these might have been a nightmare to draw.

So "bear, hat, aviator" it is.  Help?!


Some ridiculous photos of us looking like dorks in Halloween costumes after the jump. Plus Charlie Chaplin and a bunny.

Colts Universe 49

Professional football is far off topic for this blog, but this is an emergency: The universe is broken and only I can fix it.

Right now, I am watching the Colts play the 49ers.  The Colts are supposed to be winning because I am rooting for them, which involves sort of tensing my entire body and channeling all my energy at the TV screen.  However, something is going wrong because Peyton Manning just got sacked for the third time. What is wrong with the universe?  When I root this hard, it always works, obviously, since the Colts are undefeated this season.

There is a simple explanation for why the Colts aren't winning.  You see, when I was a kid I was a 49ers fan (we moved from northern CA to Indiana when I was eleven).  So even though I'm channeling all of my energy at the Colts on the TV, the universe is a little bit confused by the fact that a long time ago I used to channel my energy at the 49ers. 

It is easy to see where this confusion comes from.  You see, the 49ers of my youth were the Colts of now.  Think of the Joe Montana/Jerry Rice combo.  Now, think of the Peyton Manning/Marvin Harrison combo.  That Marvin Harrison is no longer a Colt is part of the universe's confusion.  However, the core of the problem is that as a child I rooted for a team with a charismatic, dynamic quarterback and graceful receivers, and now I root for a team with those same qualities.  When these two teams play each other, the universe sometimes goes bananas and crosses energy streams.

Dear universe, I see why you are confused, but please consider this blog post an explanation and directive. Set yourself back on course: I am rooting for the Colts.  Please stop channeling my energy to the wrong team.

Update: Universe, that play in which Manning handed it to Addai who threw it (!) to Wayne for a touchdown?  That's what I'm talking about! Excellent use of the energy I'm channeling at the TV with my body tension!  Thank you for reading and understanding.  Also, I'm happy to see you following my blog.

Appleseed Coffee Obelisk

We find ourselves deep in an old cemetery with an egg timer, the D&D dice, and a very sharp pencil that we plan to throw at a map (we have yet to purchase a real dart).  The starting point was easy: Our sense of humor is essentially juvenile and the Butz obelisk made us giggle (apologies to the Butzs of the world. Have you seen our last name? We should really not make fun). 

(Factoid: Spring Grove is the 2nd largest cemetery in the United States. The first time we ventured inside we walked in circles until rescued at dusk by the security guard).

We fumble our implements.  Is this really the intermediate level? It feels like maybe we have not been allowed to pass GO, that we have landed at the advanced level.  We debate the most interesting way to use the egg timer. We get frustrated. We get into an argument about when the right moment will be to throw our extra-sharp pencil at the map.

A deer walks by.  It feels random.  We will take it. It is true, we still belong on the intermediate level.  Our new plan is to follow the deer to the funeral monument that will determine the first word for our next round.  We follow the deer past a Breitner, past a Kroger, past many names that we can't pronounce or draw.  We get nervous.

We arrive at the mild-mannered, unassuming stone of a person surnamed Bear. It isn't as exciting as we expected--it's even bland.  But it will do.

Later, we come across other promising possibilities: Seal, Wolf, Fairyring, Sandman, Coffee, Coghill, Appleseed.  We are tempted to cheat, but Bear was first.

We still have two words to go.  Fitting with the season, we are planning a funereal theme. Any ideas?

Below the break are what amount to a superfluous number of photos of us and Spring Grove Cemetery. Plus, Randi doodled a bear on a scrap of paper.

Egg Radar Dart

Here it is.  Obviously it's a gaslight field chair, which is where a Central Registry clerk is stationed for the purpose of distributing the key that, once inserted into the lamppost, makes the…well, I won't belabor the obvious.

What is this gaslight chair contraption doing in a field and who is this clerk waiting for? What is his job? What happens when you turn the key in the lamppost keyhole? What is the Central Registry?

This was supposed to be a sketch, but it looks like a finished drawing to me. WTF, Randi? I vote that we not hold Randi to this standard every time.  She has things to do, like drink coffee  and watch movies with me.

However, I do think it's time to venture up from beginner level to intermediate, which means that a stranger, more difficult set of rules is required.  I have been eyeballing various implements of randomness around the house.  Some things on my radar:

Egg timer

Dart (I need to buy one--seems safer than knife or ninja star)

Test of physical endurance

Phonebook

Field Trip (maybe to aquarium?)

???

If you have some ideas for rules, fire them our way.  The more preposterous the idea, the more persuasive we will find it (I say that with the knowledge that I might have to take it back).