I was invited to contribute to a book of artwork based on fonts. My task was to personify the font “Edwardian Script.” I realize that my contribution is a little on the nose, but I’m glad for the opportunity to paint a person from my favorite period.
From time to time people post fan art. I decided to do some of my own and it was a toss up between Batman and Peter Robinson. I chose Peter Robinson. If you don’t know who he is than you probably haven’t enjoyed his interview program on the web. It is called Uncommon Knowledge and it is surprisingly different from the conversations that occur on cable news networks. Twenty-four-hour news networks counterintuitively breed fast paced manic shallow exchanges. Networks pit their guests against one another in 30 second increments and nothing gets analyzed very deeply. By contrast, Uncommon Knowledge displays a good variety of people who are encouraged to articulate their thoughts more deeply than your average interview program or news show.
In short, this program is everything I’ve always wanted Charlie Rose to be. It is significantly better than Charlie Rose. Peter Robinson is always well prepared for the interviews. He regularly quotes from his guests’ books and frequently presses them on the finer points of their theses in contradistinction to Charlie Rose who interviews his guests like someone with Attention Deficit Disorder.
If you have not yet seen this Uncommon Knowledge, you should. You can watch it on fora tv, or if you prefer to watch more recent episodes in bite-sized portions you can check it out at NRO.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Daniel Hannan (MEP) on the European vision of productivity vs. American vision of productivity.
America & Europe with Daniel Hannan: Chapter 2 of 5 – Uncommon Knowledge – National Review Online
Daniel Hannan (MEP) on the connection between European Welfare and childbirth.
America & Europe with Daniel Hannan: Chapter 3 of 5 – Uncommon Knowledge – National Review Online
Claire Berlinski analyzes the secret of Margaret Thatcher’s success.
Thatcher & More with Claire Berlinski: Chapter 2 of 5 – Uncommon Knowledge – National Review Online
Harvey Mansfield critiques grade inflation at Harvard.
Sebastian Junger speaks about the intimacy of war.
War with Sebastian Junger: Chapter 2 of 5 – Uncommon Knowledge – National Review Online
Technically it isn’t criminal for Alvin Greene to recive 330,000 votes. But it’s a little weird, right? He’s an out-of-work discharged serviceman with felony charges, and a campaign that consists of two things: the sentence “Demint started the recession,” and a comic book starring Alvin Greene as The Ultimate Warrior.
On election night Alvin Greene stood in an empty hotel conference room with a miniature cucumber sandwich in his hand and rows and rows of empty chairs behind him. He bobbed and weaved as a small group of newsmen followed him about the room. His plan was simple: walk away from people with cameras. When reporters cornered him and peppered him with questions, he relied on plan B: shove sandwich in mouth to delay answers. Finally, when it couldn’t be avoided, he made a comment:
“Last year at this time I was unknown … so that’s a good thing … so um, like I said, and now, um … you know, I have things like these [holds up the cover of his comic book The Ultimate Warrior] and so we can, you know, promote things like these.”
This ridiculousness is made possible by the straight-party-ticket-vote. Now I guess I understand straight party voting back in the day when you had color coded ballots and you needed easy ways to sort them, but it doesn’t make any sense today. In fact, it seems that the only function of the straight party vote is to strengthen the weakest candidates on the party’s ticket. I’m not a fan of the Democratic Party, but when a straight party line vote means that a person drawn to the polls to vote for Jim Clyburn ends up supporting Jim Clyburn’s nemesis Alvin Greene, something’s wrong.
Howdy gang. I was married on Oct 30th. Got me a fine woman. Below is the cover of our wedding invitation. This was before I got a haircut. I also made myself look better than I do in real life and Alissa look worse in order to try to bridge the looks gap.
Here are some pictures from our wedding at Skylight chapel.
Here is a picture of famous 1920s safe cracker, Stanley Conrad a.k.a. Stanley Fingers.
Hurray. I guess 100 posts isn’t really that much, but 100 of anything is pretty much a big deal for me, and to be quite frank for some other people in the world. It is the telephone number of the police in Greece, India, and Israel, the number of tiles in a standard Scrabble set, and the atomic number of fermium. Ah, fermium.
A couple weeks ago, I did a coloring sheet on Nebuchadnezzar for some kids in a Sunday School class that Alissa and I taught. A couple days ago, I decided to color it myself.
When I eat with Alissa in a restaurant, I seem to have trouble not looking behind her while she’s talking to me. It’s a problem. I get that, but last week I think it was understandable. Alissa was talking about her day and behind her a group of Japanese folk were singing “Happy Birthday” to the accompaniment of a DRUM. Yes, that’s right a drum. I’m not making this up, and it wasn’t a snare drum or anything like that, which would be weird, but sort of peppy. No this was the type of drum that MGM used when they wanted to indicate a sacrifice to King Kong. Also, the rhythms were different. The drum was sort of doing its own thing.
Let me set the scene.
Alissa: So this lady comes in and I tell her, we’ll be with you in a moment.
Me: Uh-huh
Group In the Back: Haaappy (BONG) Birthd (BONG) ay
Alissa: Words words words words …
Me: Sure.
Group in the Back: (Bong)
My hearing also improves when Alissa and I go out. Not my actual hearing. My peripheral hearing and it makes me easily distracted.
Alissa: What do you think?
Me: You should talk with him and say, I don’t mind stress at the job, but as long as it’s job related and not … um … and not … the … I’m sorry, I forgot what I was talking about.
Alissa: What have you been looking at?
Me: I’m sorry, there was a woman before who was like 6’5″ and she was staring at your plate like she was gunning for the top spot in a plate staring competition.
Alissa: At my plate?
Me: I think she was interested in what you ordered. And just now the lady behind you said that she shops at Wal-Mart for bar clothes because they’ll get trashed. I’m sorry, but that’s just interesting right?
Alissa: Really?
Me: Yes. What are bar clothes?
Alissa: Where is she?
Me: Don’t look now, but she’s on this side (taps table with left hand) right behind you. She’s wearing a white shirt. Looks like a mom. Okay, you can look.
Alissa stretches and turns toward the door.
Me: Weird right?
Alissa: I can’t believe you heard that. I can’t hear anything.
At any rate, I’m trying to focus more when Alissa talks to me, but if I should overhear anything interesting I’ll keep you guys posted.
I’ve been working on a board game cover recently. The folks who made it had me play the prototype with them and it’s crazy fun. I don’t even really like board games, but this one is great.
At any rate, here are my very rough roughs.
As always, the one in which I was least interested communicated the elements of the game most clearly. I preferred the middle one first, the top one second, and the bottom one last. The client preferred the bottom one, the top one, then the middle one.
Below is the final.
If you see it in stores in the next couple of months, buy it! It’s a great game.
Beginning of a piece I will color in photoshop later.
