CalamityJon's blog
Little Golden Book of Manners
Submitted by CalamityJon on November 19, 2009 - 12:39
Found this at the Value Village about a year ago, but just got around to scanning it. Classic pre-BusyTown artwork from the inimitable Richard Scarry, in a book of obnoxiously anal retentive etiquette reminders evidently regurgitated from rote memory by put-upon grade schoolers. Poor kids, the rule about when to remove your hat was probably sufficient to spark nervous breakdowns in half a generation.
The set, containing the whole book, is here.
Hey, Star Wars (expanded universe) Nerds, a question:
Submitted by CalamityJon on November 17, 2009 - 16:17
From the plethora of Star Wars-spunoff novels and story collections, what sticks out to you as the most iconic covers?
I ask out of curiosity, and because I have two choices. When I was just a little shaver, I was pretty obessed with pulp novels, and I gladly welcomed into the same circle as Tarzan and John Carter the trilogy of Han Solo ... er, solo adventures (well, he had Chewie with 'im, anyway), They were awful, mind you, but I loved 'em, and despite (or perhaps 'because of') drawing its central pose from a pretty famous movie still, I always thought Han Solo and the Lost Legacy was really striking.
Cartoonists Assemble!
Submitted by CalamityJon on November 9, 2009 - 17:23
Hey, cartoonists! Holmes, of the truly excellent vintage comic strip site Barnacle Press, needs your help! I know that all of us who are familiar with BP love the site (and are all big fans of Everett True!) and I have a feeling that those of you seeing it for the first time are going to fall in love. BP does a great service for fans of classic cartooning, and now they could use some help with a very fun project (which is both on a very tight deadline and nonexistent budget).
Here's the deal: Barnacle Press has a really neat project coming out, for which they need 45 spot illustrations. And they can't pay. And they need it by this upcoming Monday. But trust me when I say that it is a very awesome project - I had to turn it down just because of the amount of work currently on my plate, although I may try to find the time to do one or two myself, depending on the response.
It turns out that I like absinthe...
Submitted by CalamityJon on November 3, 2009 - 12:16
I had my first experience with absinthe a couple of weekends ago, and it turns out that I love the stuff. I've always been a closet black licorice fan - sharing a bag of Jelly Bellies has inevitably been a shaming experience, for my part - so I aboslutely love the flavor. (I've also figured out that the Black Lagoon cocktail I wrote up a few weeks back, which I also dearly loved and which I snapped up from a Martha Stewart magazine is, itself, an attempt to replicate the color and flavor of absinthe. So go figure)
Slappy Halloween, Flapjacks!
Submitted by CalamityJon on October 30, 2009 - 11:46
Hey, Happy Almost Halloween everybody! I carved another pumpkin earlier this week, on accounta my turnip ghost jack-o-lantern basically burned up into a charred nodule, and besides I wanted to carve them horrible teeth again, because it's fun. There's a full-light pic of this guy here, and also you can see that I carved a Pac-O-Lantern and friends ...
Clever turnips, these needle-teeth.
Submitted by CalamityJon on October 27, 2009 - 11:51
Did you know that the tradition of carving Jack O'Lanterns began with turnips rather than pumpkins? I guess so! Anyway, I gave it a try, and carved this little weirdo.
Wanna know why they don't do that anymore? (A) It's hard and (B) turnips smell kind of awful after they've been sitting around a while.
So on Saturday
Submitted by CalamityJon on October 20, 2009 - 21:42
So, on Saturday, Justin Ison and his girl Erin, and Mark DeJoy and his girl Missy came by our place for a cloudy day of Eastside Yuppie famland fun, which primarily consisted of petting pygmy goats and alpacas, a little bit of thrift store shopping and then a huge holy buttload of Mediterranean food and pumpkin banana bread. I also prepared some cocktails, two of which I'm slightly embarrassed to admit out loud that I got from the latest Martha Stewart Halloween issue, one I'm definitely embarrassed to admit I got from Emeril Lagasse, and a hot toddy of my own invention which I thought would be a nice thing to drink if the day got cold, but it didn't really, so I have quite a bit of bourbon whiskey in the house (or, since the party was four days ago, nowhere near as much bourbon whiskey left in the house as I had four days ago).
Hey there I
Submitted by CalamityJon on October 20, 2009 - 16:47
Hey there, I want to spread the word on something ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
drewgilbert is doing:
The short story is this: With a child on the way, I have decided that before being a father takes up all of my free time, I need to try running in this one insane race I have wanted to do for years now. To keep me on this path, I am doing it for the non profit arts program Free Arts NYC.
