Pieces on the board

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

The song is pretty nice. It's by an Australian band I'm not familiar with otherwise. But I'm really here because I'm really here because I'm a sucker for a good alternative process animated work. (In truth any hand drawn animation can be called an alternative process at this point.) This one makes fine use of chalk's tendency to leave traces of itself behind, which you might think is a disadvantage. Extra credit for using more than one chalkboard.

Eye opener

I discovered the work of  Jens Retlev just today.*  Several paintings of his hang on the walls of a Swedish cafe that his wife manages. One that particularly grabbed me isn't on his website. And also, or course, his work does lose something in the translation from paint to pixels. But even a suggestion is pretty impressive.

* Pronounced with a "y" sound? You bet!

The greatest show on Earth

This Canadian puppet show is obviously for little kids, but that doesn't stop it from being clever or possessing a certain dark humor. A ringmaster who doesn't bother giving the new lion tamer any special training could be seen as either evil or dumb, but not terribly good at their job either way. You'll see the twist ending coming, but it's still a good one.

Mercury's up there

Okay, so I messed up looking at Ventusky last night. It turns out that if you don't actually click on your city the service defaults to showing you the weather for Zagreb or someplace like that. Lucky Croats. So the temperature is in the low 90s tonight and probably was last night as well. Ah well, nothing I haven't faced before.

 If nothing else it's a sign to change from red to white if you like having wine at dinner. And there's certainly nothing wrong with a nice chilled pinot grigio.

Men, women, children, dogs

I was invited to a friend's house for dinner this weekend and wound up going earlier tonight. It was mostly quite nice, partly because I was seeing people I hadn't seen in months. Plus a relative (his, not mine) whom I'd never met before.

Met the dogs again too. Actually this time there were three, another guest having brought his Shepherd/something else mix. They were fun. It's hard to believe that, after a bite experience, I went through several years of being afraid of dogs. Except for ours, of course.

Rock on

Grady Hendrix has started to get a reputation for taking on crazy premises in his books and—at least for those kindly disposed—making them work. I read We Sold Our Souls a year or two ago and recently decided to reread it. It does hold up pretty well.

Basically, twenty years a metal band with big dreams got into a serious auto accident. Their main songwriter and lead guitarist Kris Pulaski was at the wheel, but there's time missing from that scenario. Her life was ruined, which is true of a couple of her bandmates too. But not the lead singer, Terry, whose lawyers were behind some sinister contracts they signed.

Hendrix has enough discipline as a writer for there to be a clear through-line to the events. But he's bold enough to put some crazy stuff on that line. Eventually it falls into a rhythm.

Follow suit

There's a haberdasher not far from here, both old fashioned and posh. The fact that it's surprised into the present has to be counted as some kind of accomplishment.

Aside from noting its continued presence, though, I had never taken much notice of it. But in passing recently I've observed a change in their stock. The suits on the headless mannequins are dandyish beyond belief. Brightly colored jackets with patterned lining and baroque neckties.

A reaction, perhaps, to uniform COVID-era sterility. Maybe and maybe not. This style isn't something I expect to see on every corner, but it might be a harbinger in its way.