My eyes are filled with gods

The summer deadlines are upon us at work. Publication deadlines have been moved up, new projects have been added, and of course, everything is due at the same time. Also there’s the heat wave thing that’s making people melty and crazy, which is just all sorts of helpful when you’re working with students who are in the midst of their own mini-meltdown.

So, today will be a post about beautiful things.

Remember that band I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, The Moulettes? I found a copy of their CD from a British-based second-hand seller off Amazon.  Think piratical back-room chamber musicians, dingy wigs askew, getting paid under the table in gin and cigarettes.  The vocals remind me of the Andrews Sisters, or maybe a mellow incarnation of the Ditty Bops, with Jill Tracy’s wicked sense of humor and lovely harmonies (no Rasputina-style vibrato warbles here).  The main instruments are cello, violin and bassoon, and they shift tempo on a dime.

My only real complaint is that a few of the songs occasionally plummet into the so-soft-as-to-be-impossible-to-hear territory — “Devil of Mine” is particularly prone to this — but that’s a minor irritation compared to the otherwise delicious feast. DoM has an interesting video, too, the sort of imagery that reminds me of someone being lured to a faery party that disappears at dawn and leaves them lying in a muddy grove.

I’ve just discovered the John Barleycorn Must Die blog, chronicling the creative process and tomfoolery of the writer and artist as they bring a graphic novel to life.

WHAT IS ’JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE’ ABOUT?

This graphic novel is about the end of the reign of the sky gods and the birth of humanity.

Since time immemorial, the sky gods, aided by earthly Fraternities, have impregnated mortal women, producing demigods who have influenced humanity in their favour. In the 17th century, Elizabeth Cromwell (Oliver Cromwell’s mother) created a Sorority of mortal women to kill these demigods before they generate ‘sky fall’.

A magician, John Barleycorn, is charged by a mysterious woman to expose the last demigod before he can bring about the enslavement of humanity….

The writer (editor/artist/writer Terri Windling’s husband, Howard Gayton) and the artist (Rex Van Ryn) start with an old folk song and spin it out into a modern story. Which doesn’t end well for poor John Barleycorn, as we all know. They’re posting pages of the novel as they go, so I’ll have to go back and read from the beginning.

Also: I am in delighted awe of Brittney Lee’s papercut art. I really have nothing more to say except that I’m incredibly envious of her talent and creativity. And I’m hoping she does post a tutorial at some point, because I would love to give that a try at some point, if only for my own amusement.

In other news, I admit I laughed out loud the first time I saw the new local Crimestoppers/SBPD commercial that insists graffiti is not art.  It shows local children dutifully painting over tags on a building, and is a painfully obvious,  panties-officially-bunched, political pissing match response to the CAD article the Tribune ran a few weeks back (which is apparently no longer available on the SBT site, so huzzah for Google cache!).

The second time I saw it, it only succeeded in pissing me off.

Yes, it is art. You may not agree with its method of delivery, or its message, and those are valid and arguable points. There is a moral gray area there. But it is art. It’s the only interesting thing about being stuck watching a train go by. It’s a splash of color on forgotten buildings, and utility boxes no one ever notices otherwise, and deadly dull bridges with failed scrubby landscaping. It’s an unexpected glimmer of creativity in a landscape that is unmitigated boredom.  And as far as I’m concerned, it resides firmly in the realm of beautiful things.

We did CAD’s Karma Hunt on the Mishawaka Riverwalk a couple of weeks ago — it was a lot of fun, and a good excuse to go outside for a few hours and do something different. (Since this SBT article doesn’t attempt to hide the location, I don’t particularly feel the need to keep that mum.) We found 9 of the 12 blocks that first trip, but only made it about 75% of the way around before low blood sugar forced us to abandon the hunt.

So that was two weekends ago. This weekend, we went back to finish the last leg of the Riverwalk we didn’t get to, in the hope that we’d find the remaining three tiles, but we had no luck — either we missed them elsewhere along the path, or they’ve already been pulled down, as someone had tried to do with the “Be an explorer” tile.

I had mentioned CAD’s tags in conversation with some of my coworkers and friends, and it was disheartening that the majority of the people I mentioned it to immediately frowned and felt compelled to point out that it’s vandalism (somehow even the word itself became disgusting as they spat it out). There was no room for the possibility that it might be amusing or creative or have any value at all beyond the price of clean-up.

I’m not surprised, just disappointed. I get the same reaction for just about everything I admit to liking — a sort of utter incomprehension, as if I’m simultaneously speaking a foreign tongue and extolling the virtues of getting high on intravenous liquefied garbage. It’s frustrating, and tiring, and it makes me sad that there’s no room in their souls anymore for coloring outside the lines.

Clearly I should just stop talking outside of my head and just invest in some good old-fashioned invisible friends. Except … I can’t, because then the aforementioned humans tend to assume things that aren’t true, and act on those assumptions, and that’s even more frustrating than being looked at like I’m an alien until they conveniently forget the conversation ever happened.

Someday, I imagine I’ll just snap and suddenly no longer give a damn about playing the game. And then I’ll have to figure out a different way to make a living.

/sigh

And on that note, I leave you with the Best Pony Ever. Because everything is better with Fluttershy, obviously.

Edit: If you’re curious, the SBT article also posted a photo gallery of CAD in action.

CAD on the former Ryan's Steak House in SB

South Bend folks: We have our very own Banksy, y’all. CAD is my new hero. I was going to grab a camera this weekend and go hunting for all the easter-egg stencil art tags I’ve been seeing around town, but s/he saved me the trouble. All it took was a quick search for the signature “CAD flower bomb” I’ve seen in a few places.  I just wish the locations were posted along with the pics, so I could watch for the ones I haven’t spotted yet when I’m out and about.

This – this is a thing that makes me happy.

Let’s be clear about this: I’m still no fan of D&D in any of its incarnations. However, a writer I quite like (Erin Palette of Curse/Or fame) has just published the first installment of her fantasy campaign setting in Claw/Claw/Bite magazine. Erin has posted previews of her Pellatarrum setting on Lurking Rhythmically, but I’m glad to see her RPG work paying off, too.

Go grab a copy of CCB if you can — issue 18 is on sale at RPG Now for $2.99 at the moment.

Also, if you haven’t been to her blog, you really should. Y’know, especially if you’re into “hot goth-girl beseeching action!” Or awesome modern mythic fiction. Or gaming. Or guns. Or Discordianism. Or sarcasm ++. Oh, hell, just go visit her already.

Dammit. I want those boots. So unfair.

Normally I’m not much of a fan of sky gods, but here’s Zeus, gettin’ his game on. Look at his face! This is serious bidness. Hee.

Art by: skitchman

Today is the Winter Solstice. It is a sadness that the clouds and snow hid last night’s full moon lunar eclipse, but what else can we expect from Indiana in the winter? In any case, break out the pomegranates and wine, the red ribbons, Lucia candles, Krampus switches and wassail!  The days get longer from here on out. Someday, rumor has it, we’ll even get to see that big ol’ fireball in the sky again.

To celebrate, here is a pretty, pretty thing: Yoshitaka Amano‘s upcoming anime, Deva Zan (courtesy of W.). I am full of want.

Almost forgot … I wanted to post a link to Katelan Foisy’s work-in-progress painting, Hela, a portrait of the Norse goddess of the dead (some of them, anyway).

Hel is traditionally described as being half flesh and half dead, with the dead portion variously skeletal, black or blue depending on the story and the teller. She is a daughter of Loki,  sister to Fenris and Jörmungandr, and will bring her dead to Ragnarok to join Loki’s army against the gods.

I don’t believe Hel is ever accused of being kind or warm in the old stories (more often bitter and gloomy; she mostly gets those who did not die in battle, after all) but Katelan’s rendering is lovely and gentle. I hope she posts the finished work when it’s done.

Via Walyou:

Bob Basset: A Ukranian workshop devoted to leather craft, steampunk art, gas masks, Cthulhu masks, etc. My favorite is the dragon backpack — if it doesn’t make you the hit of any gamer convention, I don’t know what will.

Samples:

Dragon backpack from Bob Basset's

Cthulhu mask from Bob Basset's

Gramophone mask by Bob Basset's