Culture: Books, Paintings and Online

Me and the missus joined friends for Amy Sedaris at the DeKalb County Public Library on Tuesday. Bought the book, got it signed. Laughed a lot, nice night.

Latest art purchase...



Love it. Will talk more about this piece later.

And lastly, just had an carhenge article on posted at a favorite travel website: Nothing To See Here: Carhenge, Nebraska

Atomic Paranoia as a Hobby: Somebody Likes My Blog...

... I don't care what the bumper sticker my wife wants to get me. Got a shoutout from Ward Jenkins from Ward-O-Matic. In addition to being the Animation Director for Primal Screen here in Atlanta, he's been posting some sweet pix on his Flickr page.

My favorites are in his Fallout Shelter Handbook from 1962 collection that he blogged about a couple of days ago. Saw the pix first on Boing Boing.



I too have a couple of atomic age oddities.



A strange book, that talks about increasing productivity by recognizing the potential in your employees. That is until they reach a critical mass that destroys North America (see book cover for geographic location of powerful people.) Purchased at Victory Vintage which has a mural done by Ward.



Also in my collection...

"If the Bomb Falls: A Recorded Guide to Survival"



Bought the album off of eBay. The image above is from CONELRAD the home of "All Things Atomic, The Golden Age of Homeland Security", which has RealAudio files from the "If the Bomb Falls" LP.

Thanksgiving with the Fam & The Week to Come

Mom and Pop came to town. Thanksgiving, we had a great/unhealthy dinner at The Colonnade and stuffed ourselves. The day after, we spent the day at Stone Mountain. Gorgeous day, not too expensive, good pictures were taken. We were all surprised at how extensive the attractions were at the site. Wikipedia has a thorough entry on Stone Mountain, which included the fact that before carving Mount Rushmore, artist Gutzon Borglum joined the Klan while working on a never-completed version of the mountain's Confederate memorial.

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It's Sunday and I've already been working for 2 days. I won't be off work until next Sunday. 8 days in a row, 4 different employers. And after all that work, I'm hoping for some fun.



I posted about the show last year and now its being produced in Atlanta by Dad's Garage Theatre. I'm jumping on the couch with joy!

Found While Shopping: "Scene in Action Ku Klux Klan Lamp"

I was planning on a recap of my Thanksgiving. But I had to get this out there first. My sweet wife was shopping for me for christmas. She didn't find what she was looking for, but she did find this...



"A truly imposing and impressive motion lamp, and one which will be the highlight of any collection of lamp or Klan material. This Ku Klux Klan motion lamp looks great when off with its rich color graphic, but when operating the blazing fire on and around the cross is remarkable and quite realistic...

...This 1920’s lamp was manufactured by the famous Scene In Action lamp company. They produced some of the finest motion lamps ever made in the twenties and thirties. This one was made on special order; it was not mass produced."

Wow.

Richard Cheese, Free Music Hurray & Still Have to Pay for a Car

There are many reasons to love loungestar Richard Cheese, but his "private letter" to soon-to-be-single Britney Spears is just beautiful...

"...Together, Britney, you and I will finally find the kind of marital happiness that only Annette and Warren have known. We'll travel the globe, inspire the masses, make the whole world sing. And, we'll do it on the floor about a hundred times a day. Hey, I'll even drive the car so you can hold the babies on your lap in front of the airbag. "

Just a small sample of one man's love for Britney.

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While cruising my usual collection of MP3 blogs, found out from largehearted boy that Minty Fresh Records is giving away a free EP by french band Prototypes.

I heard them on Georgia State's radio station, and liked them ever since.

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Today was spent looking for a new car to replace the one injured in an accident.  While we thought the process would be like getting root canal, it turned out pretty painless.  The biggest surprise was the salesmen and woman.  No high pressure, polite, and professional.  Remarkably low-key and none of them reeked of desperation.  Which was a welcome change.

The new car will be very unsexy.  Since the insurance company ruled our current car a total loss (but still completely drivable), we had been forced to buy another.

The day we found we needed a replacement car, my sweetie drove by one much like this on Peachtree Industrial and the 285...



I wish.

Juxtaposition: Them, Me

Michael Hughes' photos tagged with 'souvenirs'. First seen on Neatorama - Same Place, 50 Years Later.



Link: "The idea was to revisit historic photograph locations and take identical photographs, as if the camera never moved and the world changed around it. It's a little more difficult than I expected due to variations in lenses, inaccessibility of locations and a lack of constant markers. Still all of these are close to correct(some are better than others)." First seen on Neatorama - Trompe l'oeil Photography: Souvenirs in Front of Landmarks.







Something I did myself, pet projects. A Las Vegas map (1952) from University of Nevada Reno's online Nevada in Maps collection overlayed on Google Earth. And in Chicago, a map of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

Back in Atlanta: Rode the Pig

The New Pig. Pink Pig at Macys in Atlanta



New Georgia Encyclopedia: Rich's Department Store

New Orleans Roadtrip = A Stop At the Lunchbox Museum

A wedding in New Orleans had me driving down to the Big Easy by myself. A short sidetrip to Columbus, GA allowed for a visit to the River Market Antiques Mall and Lunchbox Museum. Many pictures were taken, and are now online. Wonderfully odd, the antiques mall not only houses the Lunch Box Museum, but the Southern Stoneware Museum and Larry Hall's "Empire City," a fictional model city.

River Market Antiques Mall, Columbus, GA - Lunchbox Museum & Larry Hall's "Empire City" - a photoset on Flickr

"Karaoke got me feeling Poetry" - Late night out with some friends.

A couple of drinks helped. The nights events transpired a little like this...

A night of karaoke, middle of nowhere suburban bar,
where something/nothing orange night lights lead to...
country rockstars singing with Monty lawyer types,
who crooned Johny Cash songs,
and dueted Linkin Park.

Drunken directions made for late night corrections,
which headed south and back on my way
back to the 75.

WRAS had poets unknown making the trip back,
a distraction and dark copilot home.
Urban Atlanta makes itself known again,
a black urban witch wandered the streets,
rolled down the window, but missed her missives

A pale film of fog covered the last bit of road,
off of the park and ahead of my path.

And now to my place,
and hungry cat.

My Productive Friends and the Man Formally Known as Artist

Work has always been fun for the people.  But even more so, because they have been starting to get things going in their lives.  

Jason (Grant's Music Skool) got signed with Sony and now had a tour bus at his dad's house.  It's waiting to take him around the country, taking his brand of country/rock to the people. His new contract is the beginning of better things, starting with a 2007 tour and record deal.  

Vas just got a commercial gig with Comcast, which means of you've seen a Comcast commercial with a chef in a kitchen, I know that guy.

And Charlie is a audio guy who has worked with Dick Hyman on a Woody Allen movie, amongst many other jobs and talents.  Now he is heading to Russia for a week to work with disadvantaged kids.

Me... former art major with loads of ideas that roll around in my head late at night... what do I have going?  Nothing.  I just spent the last couple of hours checking my email and surfing.  But all those good things that live in my head?  They still are only there, with little or no attempt to take the next steps to get them closer to reality.  I used to be an artist making sculpture and 2-D pieces.  That tapered off and since then kept thinking of other creative exercises (inventions, music, movie ideas) to occupy my mind.  But can you call yourself creative when you don't actually create a tangible item/thing?  Now I just call myself imaginative, as I have the problem of never being able to get my mind to be really still and quiet.  

Now that my busy work schedule is slowing down, I've got time to think of all the ways I am not making my ideas come true.  And besides beating myself up over my life-long habit of non-action I doubt anything will come of it.  It's all about action, and my tendency for perfectionism has kept me from taking the measures to make thing happen, out of the fear that they won't met my expectations.  And a real inability to ask other people to help with suggestions and advice.  So, instead, I have nothing to show for all the projects and ideas that live in my head.

Motivation, where to get some...?