But It's a Dry Heat

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Scrambled Brain and Ham

It’s done. The art show season for 2011 is o-vah. Finis. No mas. Which leaves me loads of time to … finish painting the dining room. Before Christmas.

I need a holiday from the holidays.

As I write this, it doesn’t have a cover image yet (I’ve seen the prelim, but I don’t know if it’s official), but The Canvas Thief is up for pre-order at Amazon. (Also has the author name listed as “Patricia Kirby,” but that should get fixed soon.)

Anyway…I came across this saying by Louisa May Alcott and decided it was the perfect fit for an old drawing on my hard drive. What would we do without books? Face reality?  Shudder. (Click image for larger view.)

Murder Most Foul

Today, on the very day that my Cyber Monday purchase–two gopher traps–shipped, I find my nemesis in the yard, D.E.A.D, dead. Yes, ding-dong, the wicked rodent’s dead.

Friends know that as a rule, my garden is a welcoming place to wildlife. Heck, this year I even called off hostilities against the paper wasps. (It turns out they are great allies in the war against tomato worms, which, as a rule, I also don’t kill. I just pluck ’em off the plants and chuck ’em over the fence.)

But my garden is my life, in darkest times the bright spot that keeps me going. (And my dark spots are abysmal, think Laurentian Trench.) There is no coexistence with an animal, no matter how cute, that is laying waste to my organic Prozac.

As this is war, I first dug trenches and (more…)

The King’s Speech

Years ago my husband dragged me to see Master and Commander. I sulked in the uncomfortable seat and grumbled, “Stupid, period drama. Ships, bleh.” And then … I loved it. It’s one of my favorite movies.

So, even though the premise held no promise, I tried to watch The King’s Speech with an open mind.

The King’s Speech is no Master and Commander.  It’s a well made movie. The acting, particularly by Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, is excellent. But like many Oscar-winning movies that are dripping with critics’ slobber, I really don’t see the allure.

Prince, soon-to-be King George VI, “Bertie” (Colin Firth) has a problem. He stutters. Since his primary job as royalty, besides consuming enormous financial resources, is to cut ribbons and give speeches at the opening of the newest Wal-Mart, he struggles with his vocation. Yeah, I’m being facetious–Wal-Mart–but it does seem that all he is expected to do is give speeches. And make heirs, which, despite his speech problems, he’s managed handily, producing with his wife, two little princesses. Nothin’ wrong with that part of His Majesty.

Most of Bertie’s time, when not mucking up speeches, is spent moping about mucking up speeches. Seriously. He doesn’t do much else. Unlike other royalty, hopping on a horse and galloping across the countryside after a pack of hounds, to eventually sate royal bloodlust with the rending limb-from-limb of a fox, isn’t on Bertie’s agenda. Maybe it was, but he doesn’t do that in this movie.

His wife, Queen Elizabeth (Carter) gets tired of the angst and hires Lionel Logue (Rush), an eccentric speech therapist. Eccentric because his crazy ideas actually work. At the time, conventional therapy involved having the stutterer hold several marbles in his mouth and speak. “Speak clearly. Enunciate!” berates one doctor. (One of the few times I really pitied Bertie.) Lionel’s irreverent attitude clashes with the stick-up-his-arse prince/king, but of course, eventually the two become fast friends.

Yep. This is buddy movie, sans Seth Rogin, a road trip, or humor involving farts and body parts.  (Fuck is dropped with repeatedly with great glee as part of Bertie’s therapy.  Fuck is an awesome word; it even cures stuttering.)  Instead, Bertie and Lionel work toward their ultimate triumph … a speech.

If your taste runs to period character studies or tales where terribly rich people overcome adversity, then this is a fabulous movie. Me, I’ll stick with something a bit more lowbrow.

But It’s a Dry Heat

Fun with Telemarketers

I work at a church. Don’t laugh. Okay, laugh. But thus far, god hasn’t smote his ruin upon the unfortunate house of worship for hiring me.

Being a place of worship doesn’t exclude it from getting calls from telemarketers and scammers (the line between the two being [Elrond voice on] “thin.” [Elrond voice off]).

It’s a pity I don’t think quickly on my feet, because imagine the fun I might have. For example, take the call I got last week.

Phone rings, I pick up, say “Good morning,” and clearly identify that this is church.  There’s a pause–the telltale sign that this is some kind of telemarketer–and a man shoots a rapid-fire stream of words at me: “Hi, this is Bob Smith. Can I speak with the company owner, the head honcho, the person that makes all the big decisions?”

I pause, taken by the immediate image of an arrogant asshat. He’s twitching with nervous energy and a ten-cup-a-day coffee habit. He’s balding or he’s got a buzz cut. He most certainly is reeking of cologne (it’s a salesman thing). If this were a role playing game, his chief attribute would be +50 Annoying. I hate him instantly.

“They’re not in,” I say in my best robotic monotone, which is code for, “Find something sharp, sit on it and spin until the pointy side erupts from the top of your head.” He asks if there’s a time to reach them, and I mutter something like, “No, they come and go.” Also code for “Find something sharp….” He gives up and rings off.

Now, what I should have said was:
“The ‘head honcho?’ Sure. You can talk to him any time. Just put you hands together and pray.”

Halloween Playlist and Sandy Claws

Kidnap the Sandy Claws, lock him up real tight
Throw away the key and then
Turn off all the lights

Kidnap the Sandy Claws, beat him with a stick
Lock him for ninety years, see what makes him tick.

And so it begins…the holiday season. Actually, in your average retail store, Christmas began about a month ago. I’m not a complete Grinch (more like 45% proof), but I’ve lost my childlike wonder with the Christmas holiday. Well, let’s face it, about 90% of that childlike wonder was actually avarice. Kids are greedy little pirates, looking forward to a mighty haul of swag.

But Christmas is fun, after you subtract the shopping, gift wrapping and other work. I still love putting up a tree; sparkly lights and here in New Mexico, luminarias. This year we’ll get to have X-Mas Eve dinner in our new dining room, instead of stuffed like sardines around our tiny kitchen table.

But…there are days, when I wish Oogie Boogie’s henchmen would kidnap the Sandy Claws.

I like Halloween, with its ghosts and ghoulies. It’s a pity I don’t actually have the time to celebrate it properly. The closest I get is by playing my Halloween playlist over and over. (Because I’m twelve.)

Some of the Songs on my Halloween Playlist

“All the Myths are True,”  Abney Park; “Before I’m Dead,” Kidney Thieves; “Cry Little Sister,” Gerald McMann; “Dead Man’s Party,” Oingo Boingo; “Ghost Love Score,” Nightwish; “A Gorey Demise,” Creature Feature; “Dragula,” Rob Zombie; “Moon Over Bourbon Street,” Sting; “My Beloved Monster,” Eels; “Paint it Black,” Inkubus Sukkubus; “Rawhead and Bloodybones,” Siouxsie and the Banshees; “Re: Your Brains,” Jonathan Coulter; and “The Undertaker,” Puscifer.

What’s on your Halloween playlist?

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Yesterday, Netflix vomited Transformers, Dark of the Moon into our mailbox. The reference to regurgitation being appropriate, since after freeing itself of that DVD, I’m sure Netflix felt much better. (Sorry, suckas. It goes back to you today.)

Why was it in our queue? Because the hubby and I are geeks and if it has any element of SF or fantasy, we’re are compelled to watch. Compelled by the power of nerd (and Greyskull/see, “nerds.”). We have the same problem with action flicks. Can’t not watch ’em.

Husband and I plop our butts on the couch, dinner in hand, and fire up the DVD. The movie starts, straightaway, no previews, suggesting that (more…)

A Woman’s Perogative

The average size for a home in the U.S., as of 2009, was 2700 square feet. Our little casa, at 1200, is a mite shy of average. It, along with a half dozen other houses in the neighborhood, was a builder’s concession to the notion of “affordable housing.”

As home for two humans and one large dog, Casa de Kirby doesn’t need to be a McMansion. Any issues with space are the result of a tendency toward packrat-ism that could easily be cured by a trip to the dump.

One exception. The dining room. Or the lack thereof. Events like Christmas dinner take place in a tiny corner of our tinier kitchen. When everyone is seated, getting stuff out of the fridge requires a hybrid game of Twister and Musical Chairs.

The attached garage, like everything else in (more…)

Priest

Once thing can be said for the movie Priest. It is 100-percent free of sparkly vampires. Seriously. Unless they’ve been rolled in glitter, vampires shouldn’t sparkle.

The vampires in Priest resemble naked mole rats. Which, for a sun-hating, subterranean species, isn’t a bad bit of creature design. In humans–the vampire familiars–vampirism causes a particularly virulent case of male pattern baldness. So fans of pretty boy vamps should look elsewhere.

The premise of Priest is simple and flawed. Humans and vampires have been (more…)

Greyhound Racing, Still Full of The Suck

Thanksgiving, about a month away at this point, is coming at the speed of … a greyhound.  The Corrales Society of Artists’ Holiday show will take place over the three days after Thanksgiving. After a whole season of doing next to nothing, “artz-wise,” I’ve got to get my ass in gear and make some inventory.

I was also working on edits for my upcoming release, The Canvas Thief. I think, maybe, that’s out of the way for a while. (Editor sent the final version onto where ever final versions go.) And I’m doing a book signing–The Music of Chaos–in Corrales the same weekend as the Holiday Art Show.

In the interest of appearing to have an online pulse, I give you mo’ anti-greyhound racing propaganda. Greyhound racing is a sleezy and cruel business, which, like the carton of curdled milk in the back of your fridge, has long since passed its expiration date.

The accompanying graphic is a preliminary sketch that hasn’t gone anywhere. It has problems with perspective and the race car looks like a Beetle. Does anyone race Beetles? But I got nothin’ else, so I went ahead and inked it in Photoshop.

For information on how you can help end the cruel greyhound racing industry, go to Grey2K USA.

Thor

Contains mild spoilers. Also, when it comes to spoilers and salsa (hot sauce), my definition of mild is probably an understatement.

Regarding Thor…I much preferred Loki. Whaaaat? Is that bad?

Thor, the movie, doesn’t burden itself with anything more than a paint by numbers plot. This is a good thing, since the type of scriptwriters (and possibly directors) who gravitate toward superhero flicks are usually all thumbs, unable to tie even the simplest plot threads. Thor zips along from point A to point B with no pesky speed bumps like character development to get in the way.

Thor and Loki are sons of Odin, king of the mythical realm of Asgard. When the (more…)