Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
Seen on the Road: Harry Potter Hummer Fan
Harry Potter Fan Hummer - Houston, TX, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.Saturday, September 24, 2011
Houston Fine Art Fair Recap: With Favorites
Houston has the reputation of a distant relative you don't really know well, but makes lots of money, buys expensive clothes in poor taste, and gets loud when they drink too much. The success of the first Houston Fine Art Fair, at the George R. Brown Convention Center, might make our city appear more cultured in national and international eyes.
I was there for three of the days, due to a new job. The usual snappy dressers with nice cars were well-represented, but moderately priced tickets also had local curiosity seekers walking around. The few that I talked to were impressed with the scale and appearance of the booths. Houston galleries in attendance looked great, with their exhibiting artists looking right in place neighboring national and international galleries all around. Houston high-tech artist William Betts had pieces in two out-of-state galleries, which was my introduction to him. His art is fine; it's his automated, CNC router that makes his pieces that keeps my interest.
Even if the job doesn't take me to the upcoming Texas Contemporary Art Fair, I hope to attend, just to compare and contrast.
Lionel Bawden - "The Amorphous Ones (The Spirit of Repetition)" 1 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Lionel Bawden - "The Amorphous Ones (The Spirit of Repetition)" 2 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Lionel Bawden - "The Amorphous Ones (The Spirit of Repetition)" 3 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Devorah Sperber - "After Grant Wood 1" 2 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Mark Wagner - "The Land of Milk and Honey" - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Mark Wagner - "The Land of Milk and Honey" Detail 1 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Mark Wagner - "The Land of Milk and Honey" Detail 2 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Oksana Mas - "BWM" from the series Heart Removing- Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Graciela Sacco - "Retrato I, II, III" - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
I was there for three of the days, due to a new job. The usual snappy dressers with nice cars were well-represented, but moderately priced tickets also had local curiosity seekers walking around. The few that I talked to were impressed with the scale and appearance of the booths. Houston galleries in attendance looked great, with their exhibiting artists looking right in place neighboring national and international galleries all around. Houston high-tech artist William Betts had pieces in two out-of-state galleries, which was my introduction to him. His art is fine; it's his automated, CNC router that makes his pieces that keeps my interest.
Even if the job doesn't take me to the upcoming Texas Contemporary Art Fair, I hope to attend, just to compare and contrast.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
- Brook Mason on the Houston Fine Art Fair, 2011
- Houston Fine Art Fair reaches 10,000 visitor goal, promises return | 29-95.com
- Houston Fine Art Fair Debut Totals $6 Million in Sales - ArtfixDaily News Feed
Lionel Bawden - "The Amorphous Ones (The Spirit of Repetition)" 1 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Lionel Bawden - "The Amorphous Ones (The Spirit of Repetition)" 2 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Lionel Bawden - "The Amorphous Ones (The Spirit of Repetition)" 3 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Devorah Sperber - "After Grant Wood 1" 2 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Mark Wagner - "The Land of Milk and Honey" - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Mark Wagner - "The Land of Milk and Honey" Detail 1 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Mark Wagner - "The Land of Milk and Honey" Detail 2 - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Oksana Mas - "BWM" from the series Heart Removing- Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Graciela Sacco - "Retrato I, II, III" - Houston Fine Art Fair 2011, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Pangram: When You've Drunk to Much to Say the Alphabet Backwards
This booze-based pengram (a sentence that uses every letter at least once) was found in Lettering for commercial purposes. I like it.
If you ever get pulled over you you can try this phrase if you can't say the alphabet backwards to get out of a sobriety test, but I wouldn't.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Wedneday Night Photo Post: Sea Scape
I love his photos. This one, at the entrance to the Houston Ship Channel.
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Saturday, July 02, 2011
TMI Hand Grenade: Where the Blog Owner Shares His Art and Too Much Information Which May Make You Feel Better About Your General Situation
In a reasonable imitation of a midlife crisis, I pretty much detonated my recent career path of the last few months. It was an act to maintain sanity, but hasn't done for my bank account. But it has led to a small spurt of artistic productivity. My first inclination was to keep these ideas under wraps, but I love when successful artists and creators share their process. For some it might remove the mystery, but I love seeing the foundations on which people build their ideas. And maybe posting my incomplete art for all to see may be the catalyst to keep these sculptures on track and eventually completed.
Which was also why I attended the last open house of the Tx/Rx Labs hackerspace on Commerce Ave. It's a tech geek enclave, full of computers, electronics, and sexy tools, including a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D Printer, a RepRap and a plasma CNC table. It's about people trying to make cool stuff because they can. And a few were mighty open about me asking lots of questions about my ideas and if their tools could make them (for the most part, no). It was the first time I had taken my sketchbook and samples and shown them to people.
It was weird and cool and helpful. Hopefully, it won't be the last time I talk to people about my art.
Which was also why I attended the last open house of the Tx/Rx Labs hackerspace on Commerce Ave. It's a tech geek enclave, full of computers, electronics, and sexy tools, including a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D Printer, a RepRap and a plasma CNC table. It's about people trying to make cool stuff because they can. And a few were mighty open about me asking lots of questions about my ideas and if their tools could make them (for the most part, no). It was the first time I had taken my sketchbook and samples and shown them to people.
It was weird and cool and helpful. Hopefully, it won't be the last time I talk to people about my art.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Transcribed Stroller Column: "Sonata in Jump for Four Juke Boxes" by Sig Byrd, Wednesday, March 12, 1952
It was getting towards the shank of the business day, and the Reef (that section of Milam Street from Preston to Prairie) was shutting down.
Or opening up, depending in what kind of business you mean.
At the Goodwill store, northwest corner, Milam and Preston, Carolyn Mason, a pretty brown-eyed girl was about to empty the day’s receipts into a steel cash box, when she saw the shifty-eyed derelict take a 39-cent shirt off the rack, roll it up and stick in inside his shirt.
Being physically handicapped, like all Goodwill employees (she suffered a spine injury in a traffic accident), Carolyn wondered what she ought to do.
Across Preston, the Real Tailors was closing, but the Rose O’Dixie and three other bars were spilling boogie music into the Reef. The sidewalks, both sides, were crowed with people going home and people with no home to go to, black people brown people, white people.
In the 411 Club, the glittering new heart and nerve center of the Reef, owner Bob Griffey, ex-gambler, wearing a yellow sports coat, stood near the cash register, shuffling silver half-dollars like a deck of cards. On his left hand a diamond flashed like a headlight of a locomotive.
Bob felt good. His place was crowded. Not a vacant table, not an idle moment for the brown-skinned waitresses. His customers were dark-complexioned, but they were sports. The left two inched of beer in their bottles, and smoked two-bit cigars.
Bob laughed aloud, but couldn’t hear himself because of the music and voices. He laughed because he knew what the sure-thing boys were saying – that Griffey was flat. Huh! Huh-huh!
Across the Reef, in Prensky’s pawnshop, an ex-night-club bouncer was trying to sell an expensive camera. He was trying to raise train fare home. He was dying of cancer and wanted to die in the town of his birth, not in a Jeff Davis ward.
A bright boy in a purple big-apple cap paused at Prensky’s window, looking at the knives. He wanted to see if there was a knife in the window with a blade longer than the one he had in his pocket. There wasn’t. From the corners of his eyes he watched the white man coming out of the pawnshop carrying a camera. The bright boy wondered how much the camera was worth.
Down at the corner a contact man in a pink sports shirt was waiting for a contact. The contact was late. A yellow-skinned woman passed him and he said, “You seen old Mule Ear?”
I’ve seen him a hour ago,” the yellow woman said. “He was with Two-by-Fo.” The woman hurried across the street. A big dark man in a $150 suit followed her, but she didn’t look back.
In the 411 Club, Bob Griffey passed the deck of half-dollars to his cashier. The cashier, too, was a white man, and he always looked pale next to Bob. Then the ex-gambler turned around and gazed through the fog of tobacco smoke at the murals.
The murals cover three walls of the 411 Club. They were painted by a colored boy named Lemanzel Finley, who wore a beret.
Bob Griffey doesn’t completely trust men who wear berets, but he paid Lemanzel $200 for the job. He wondered if he, Bob, got stung.
The first picture, nearest the door showed a well-dressed, middle-aged colored man hurrying along a city street. Ahead of him three other persons stood against a background of skyscrapers. One was a wavy-haired youth in a zoot-suit with a drape-shape. The second was a slick chick standing on the lid of a large garbage can. Since she wore a tight skirt, the results were arresting.
The third figure was a well-dressed middle aged colored man, wearing a ring set with what Bob supposed to be a zircon.
The series of pictures continued around the walls, and ended near the bar, with an enlarged portrait of an open straight razor.
It seemed to Bob that the pictures told a kind of story, but he couldn’t figure it all out. The wavy haired boy, he decided, was a producer. The man with the zircon was to get shed of the chick. But the rest was cloaked in dark symbolism.
Back in the Goodwill store, Carolyn watched the shifty-eyed man sidle towards the door with the stolen 39-cent shirt Her heart bumped her ribs. He was at the door now. Now he was walking down the street. Suddenly Carolyn picked up the empty steel box and started running. She completely forgot that she couldn’t run. She chased the thief two blocks and told him she would hit him in the head with the box if he didn’t bring the shirt back.
The derelict denied the theft, but he went back to the store. Carolyn followed behind him the steel box ready. She didn’t look up the Reef as she marched him back into the store, but there was a commotion in front of the Rose O’Dixie bar.
Two men were fighting on the sidewalk. A young man and a big dark man. The young man wore a purple cap. In the crowd looking on was a yellowed-skinned woman. She begged the men watching to stop the fight. “He’s got a knife!” She kept saying. “He’s got a knife!”
The police car coming up Milam started to stop at the Goodwill store, where the complaint had come from, but then the man at the wheel saw the crowd on the eats side of the Reef, he drove on, but with out pushing the yellow signal. You can stop trouble in Catfish Reef, but it’s only temporary. It always breaks out again.
Or opening up, depending in what kind of business you mean.
At the Goodwill store, northwest corner, Milam and Preston, Carolyn Mason, a pretty brown-eyed girl was about to empty the day’s receipts into a steel cash box, when she saw the shifty-eyed derelict take a 39-cent shirt off the rack, roll it up and stick in inside his shirt.
Being physically handicapped, like all Goodwill employees (she suffered a spine injury in a traffic accident), Carolyn wondered what she ought to do.
* * *
Across Preston, the Real Tailors was closing, but the Rose O’Dixie and three other bars were spilling boogie music into the Reef. The sidewalks, both sides, were crowed with people going home and people with no home to go to, black people brown people, white people.
Glitter
In the 411 Club, the glittering new heart and nerve center of the Reef, owner Bob Griffey, ex-gambler, wearing a yellow sports coat, stood near the cash register, shuffling silver half-dollars like a deck of cards. On his left hand a diamond flashed like a headlight of a locomotive.
Bob felt good. His place was crowded. Not a vacant table, not an idle moment for the brown-skinned waitresses. His customers were dark-complexioned, but they were sports. The left two inched of beer in their bottles, and smoked two-bit cigars.
Bob laughed aloud, but couldn’t hear himself because of the music and voices. He laughed because he knew what the sure-thing boys were saying – that Griffey was flat. Huh! Huh-huh!
* * *
Across the Reef, in Prensky’s pawnshop, an ex-night-club bouncer was trying to sell an expensive camera. He was trying to raise train fare home. He was dying of cancer and wanted to die in the town of his birth, not in a Jeff Davis ward.
Pursuit
A bright boy in a purple big-apple cap paused at Prensky’s window, looking at the knives. He wanted to see if there was a knife in the window with a blade longer than the one he had in his pocket. There wasn’t. From the corners of his eyes he watched the white man coming out of the pawnshop carrying a camera. The bright boy wondered how much the camera was worth.
Down at the corner a contact man in a pink sports shirt was waiting for a contact. The contact was late. A yellow-skinned woman passed him and he said, “You seen old Mule Ear?”
I’ve seen him a hour ago,” the yellow woman said. “He was with Two-by-Fo.” The woman hurried across the street. A big dark man in a $150 suit followed her, but she didn’t look back.
* * *
In the 411 Club, Bob Griffey passed the deck of half-dollars to his cashier. The cashier, too, was a white man, and he always looked pale next to Bob. Then the ex-gambler turned around and gazed through the fog of tobacco smoke at the murals.
The murals cover three walls of the 411 Club. They were painted by a colored boy named Lemanzel Finley, who wore a beret.
Street Scene
Bob Griffey doesn’t completely trust men who wear berets, but he paid Lemanzel $200 for the job. He wondered if he, Bob, got stung.
The first picture, nearest the door showed a well-dressed, middle-aged colored man hurrying along a city street. Ahead of him three other persons stood against a background of skyscrapers. One was a wavy-haired youth in a zoot-suit with a drape-shape. The second was a slick chick standing on the lid of a large garbage can. Since she wore a tight skirt, the results were arresting.
The third figure was a well-dressed middle aged colored man, wearing a ring set with what Bob supposed to be a zircon.
The series of pictures continued around the walls, and ended near the bar, with an enlarged portrait of an open straight razor.
It seemed to Bob that the pictures told a kind of story, but he couldn’t figure it all out. The wavy haired boy, he decided, was a producer. The man with the zircon was to get shed of the chick. But the rest was cloaked in dark symbolism.
Under Arrest
Back in the Goodwill store, Carolyn watched the shifty-eyed man sidle towards the door with the stolen 39-cent shirt Her heart bumped her ribs. He was at the door now. Now he was walking down the street. Suddenly Carolyn picked up the empty steel box and started running. She completely forgot that she couldn’t run. She chased the thief two blocks and told him she would hit him in the head with the box if he didn’t bring the shirt back.
The derelict denied the theft, but he went back to the store. Carolyn followed behind him the steel box ready. She didn’t look up the Reef as she marched him back into the store, but there was a commotion in front of the Rose O’Dixie bar.
* * *
Two men were fighting on the sidewalk. A young man and a big dark man. The young man wore a purple cap. In the crowd looking on was a yellowed-skinned woman. She begged the men watching to stop the fight. “He’s got a knife!” She kept saying. “He’s got a knife!”
The police car coming up Milam started to stop at the Goodwill store, where the complaint had come from, but then the man at the wheel saw the crowd on the eats side of the Reef, he drove on, but with out pushing the yellow signal. You can stop trouble in Catfish Reef, but it’s only temporary. It always breaks out again.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The Waco Whorish Invasion of 1952 (Revisited): A Poetic Call to Protect Houston's Virtue
I liked this poem by Carl Victor Little so much, I had to transcribe it. An army of Jezebels marching across Texas to imperil Houston's virtue just tickles my fancy.
To clarify, my fancy isn't actually being tickled by an army of Jezebels. I'm not Charlie Sheen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Take in the sidewalks, slam the shutters
Civic leaders, mobilize!
From Waco’s sin strips and her gutters
Come sinful ladies, every size -
The stout and short, the tall and lean,
They come three hundred strong,
The blondes, brunettes and in-between:
Come ring the warning gong!
They’re fancy ladies from Old Waco,
Who flee the legislative wrath;
Three hundred damsels on the make-
A-treading down the primrose path.
Let‘s Search all landing stratoliners,
Come block the highways east and west;
Let's raid the Pullmans and the diners,
Let's show a little moral zest!
We want no sinful infiltration,
Three hundred gals are on the prowl,
They’re causing civic consternation,
Bringing forth a civic howl.
They're antisocial dames from Waco,
Now put to flight by state kefauvers,
Three hundred dames for goodness sake-O
Ole Satan o’er our city hovers
Up Captain Seber, also Buster!
Alert the city and the count!
All vigilantes let us muster-
Upon these heads let’s put a bounty
Call out Jim West, his Cadillacs,
We’ll have no sinners sinning here,
Halt all invaders in their tracks
For civic righteousness, let’s cheer.
They're fugitives from Baptist Waco
Converging on Houston, TX
Three hundred gals in Satan's shako
Who put much emphasis on sex
Let’s' warn all hotel house detectives,
Yea at the Shamrock and the Rice,
That all of Waco’s moral defectives
Are swooping on us, in a trice.
We want no flotsam and no jetsam,
No gals from Waco’s dens of vice,
Let’s hope Ole Nick comes forth and gets ‘em
Before they reach our Paradise!
Away! Away! Soiled Magdalenes!
You're got us in a civic hassle:
They'll welcome you in New Orleans.
Civic leaders, mobilize!
From Waco’s sin strips and her gutters
Come sinful ladies, every size -
The stout and short, the tall and lean,
They come three hundred strong,
The blondes, brunettes and in-between:
Come ring the warning gong!
They’re fancy ladies from Old Waco,
Who flee the legislative wrath;
Three hundred damsels on the make-
A-treading down the primrose path.
Let‘s Search all landing stratoliners,
Come block the highways east and west;
Let's raid the Pullmans and the diners,
Let's show a little moral zest!
We want no sinful infiltration,
Three hundred gals are on the prowl,
They’re causing civic consternation,
Bringing forth a civic howl.
They're antisocial dames from Waco,
Now put to flight by state kefauvers,
Three hundred dames for goodness sake-O
Ole Satan o’er our city hovers
Up Captain Seber, also Buster!
Alert the city and the count!
All vigilantes let us muster-
Upon these heads let’s put a bounty
Call out Jim West, his Cadillacs,
We’ll have no sinners sinning here,
Halt all invaders in their tracks
For civic righteousness, let’s cheer.
They're fugitives from Baptist Waco
Converging on Houston, TX
Three hundred gals in Satan's shako
Who put much emphasis on sex
Let’s' warn all hotel house detectives,
Yea at the Shamrock and the Rice,
That all of Waco’s moral defectives
Are swooping on us, in a trice.
We want no flotsam and no jetsam,
No gals from Waco’s dens of vice,
Let’s hope Ole Nick comes forth and gets ‘em
Before they reach our Paradise!
Away! Away! Soiled Magdalenes!
You're got us in a civic hassle:
They'll welcome you in New Orleans.
Monday, May 02, 2011
Houston & Other Places in Gorgeous Sanborn Insurance Map Titles
Insurance map titles and the word "gorgeous,"not what one would think. But feast your typography-appreciating eyes on the design beauty of Sanborn Insurance map title pages.
I've been kind of obsessed with these images since being introduced to them by BibliOdyssey's blog post on them. A google of Houston and Sanborn lead to Sanborn Maps of Texas (which are the source of the above images) from the UT Library Online website.
I've been kind of obsessed with these images since being introduced to them by BibliOdyssey's blog post on them. A google of Houston and Sanborn lead to Sanborn Maps of Texas (which are the source of the above images) from the UT Library Online website.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Houston Might Become Better/Weirder By Addition of Single Person
He won't be attending the downtown campus (where a particularity fantastic professor teaches), but actor/writer/bong smoker James Franco was accepted for the the University of Houston's writing program Fall of 2012.
I look forward to the addition of his "unusually high metabolism for productivity ...the opposite of ADHD: a superhuman ability to focus that allows him to shuttle quickly between projects and to read happily in the midst of chaos." *
The breathless internet tweeting, blogging and facebooking of his every move if he comes to town should make for fun reading.
I look forward to the addition of his "unusually high metabolism for productivity ...the opposite of ADHD: a superhuman ability to focus that allows him to shuttle quickly between projects and to read happily in the midst of chaos." *
The breathless internet tweeting, blogging and facebooking of his every move if he comes to town should make for fun reading.
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