Sharp and Shiny.

From Charly: This is the knife I have given to my Mom for Christmas. Scary sharp – I could slice that tomato paper thin. Seems to hold edge well, it was already used since I made it and the edge was not touched up prior to photographing.

Measurements: Overall length ~26 cm, blade ~14 cm lenght, ~2 mm thick, blade grind convex with no secondary bevel.

Materials: handle scales chemically treated Elder wood (Sambucus nigra) coated with PU, blade N690 steel hardened at home in impromptu settings.

I hope to improve the design based on my mothers feedback and make more knives like this one in the future, it was fun. Beautiful! Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved.

Just Say No, Minnesota.

A fine example of christian “logic”.

Michele Bachmann is slithering back into the political scene. Maybe. Just say no, people. Michele was on Jim Bakker’s glurge-fest last week, saying she was considering running for Franken’s vacant seat:

Bachmann said that she has “had people contact me and urge me to run for that Senate seat” and that she is asking God if doing so in His will for her.

Bachmann said that she would be willing to run in order to take godly principles into the Senate but is concerned that she will be unfairly attacked by Washington insiders because “the swamp is so toxic.”

Uh huh. None of this is new, and it’s just amazing how you can sit there and opine on the toxicity of that Washington swamp, given that your hero was supposed to have cleaned that all up. Guess that wasn’t one of the miraculous “accomplishments” of the Tiny Tyrant.

“I trust in a big God,” Bachmann said, asserting that she “was supposed to run for president” in 2012 in order to make the the repeal of Obamacare the central issue of the Republican platform. “I feel like I was wildly successful … I didn’t win, but I moved the debate. So I didn’t shed a tear when I left the contest because I felt like, you know, I fulfilled the calling that God gave me.”

A “big god”. Right. I guess everything has to have a ‘big’ appended to it now. I wish this bit of idiocy would die. All I can think about now is Honeycomb Cereal…

Honeycomb’s big…yeah yeah yeah!
It’s not small…no no no!
Honeycomb’s got…a big big bite!
Big big (taste/crunch) in a big big bite!

That almost works if you use ‘god’ instead of Honeycomb. Oh look, Michele thinks she was single-handedly responsible for  the republican upset over healthcare! My my, some people might think that to be a tad arrogant. You didn’t move a thing, Michele. All anyone wanted was for you to shut the fuck up. Pretty sure people still want that.

“So the question is am I being called to do this now?” she added. “I don’t know.”

You don’t know? How is that possible? Your BIG god doesn’t have a BIG answer for you? Lazy slacker god. Or perhaps you aren’t praying enough, Michele. Go away and pray. Please.

Bakker eventually piped in to express his concern about the nasty nature of politics today, saying that “right now, they want to kill the president of the United States and if they could put a contract [out on Donald Trump]—which they probably already have—they would do so.”

Oh FFS, get off this theme already, Jim. It’s dead. Over. Gone. The stupid is too much to bear. You assign every possible evil to this nefarious ‘they’, ‘they’ get away with everything, but y’know, here in gun central, no one can get a contract going. Uh huh. At some point, you need to make an effort to be somewhat coherent, else you’ll even start losing the seriously gullible.

There’s video at RWW.

Nightingale.

Portrait of the nightingale.

Portrait of the nightingale.

Text Translation:

Of the nightingale The nightingale is so called because it signals with its song the dawn of the new day; a light-bringer, lucenia, so to speak. It is an ever-watchful sentinel, warming its eggs in a hollow of its body, relieving the sleepless effort of the long night with the sweetness of its song. It seems to me that the main aim of the bird is to hatch its eggs and give life to its young with sweet music no less than with the warmth of its body. The poor but modest mother, her arm dragging the millstone around, that her children may not lack bread, imitates the nightingale, easing the misery of her poverty with a night-time song, and although she cannot imitate the sweetness of the bird, she matches it in her devotion to duty.

Folio 52v – the jay, continued. De lucinia; Of the nightingale.

Tīw’s Day Mood.

Tool – Schism.

I know the pieces fit ’cause I watched them fall away.
Mildewed and smoldering. Fundamental differing.
Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes testing our communication
The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so
We cannot seem to reach an end crippling our communication.

I know the pieces fit ’cause I watched them tumble down
No fault, none to blame, it doesn’t mean I don’t desire to
Point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over.
To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication

The poetry that comes from the squaring off between,
And the circling is worth it.
Finding beauty in the dissonance.

There was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall away.
Mildewed and smoldering, strangled by our coveting
I’ve done the math enough to know the dangers of our second guessing.
Doomed to crumble unless we grow, and strengthen our communication.

Cold silence
has a tendency
to atrophy any
sense of compassion
between supposed lovers,
between supposed brothers.

I know the pieces fit [8x]

The Daily Bird #578.

A Crested Pigeon, from Lofty: While having lunch in a local reserve, I heard a noise like an old fashioned bicycle pump. It turned out to come from this Crested Pigeon hiding in the foliage of a nearby tree. Once spotted it jumped down to the ground and acted all innocent. Of course having heard this one, the next time I stopped at a reserve, loads of these pigeons were strutting around waving their tails at each other but I had left the camera home. Click for full size!

© Lofty, all rights reserved.

Cancer Chronicles 4: Pathology & Expression.

So…eventually, the path report makes its way to your door. Mine: Adenocarcinoma, moderately differentiated, with invasive feature and ulceration. Translation: invasive adenocarcinoma. There, that was easy. In my case, nothing I didn’t know already, but don’t get frittered by language. Look it up. If you have questions, write them down. Never be afraid to ask. The more you understand, the better you’ll be able to manage.

If ever there was a time to express yourself, this is that time. (You should be doing that anyway. Don’t wait til’ cancer comes knocking.) This is a good time to treat yourself a little. Doesn’t have to be major. I got a couple things at Big Lots:

© C. Ford.

You would not believe how incredibly obnoxious that pink nail polish is, dialed up to about nth. Everyone in the hospital loved it, kinda cheered us all up. Looks right good on the toes. Of course, for me, yet more art supplies. Got a lovely case of Daler Rowney pencils, which brings me to expression.

© C. Ford.

Draw. Write. Craft. Sing. Get your camera out. Make up new and awful fart jokes. Mortify your teenager by whipping your shirt open and saying “look, you were right, I’m full of shit!” Howl out your window and freak the fuck out of your neighbours. (They deserve it for those fucking fireworks after midnight anyway.) Something. Anything. I can’t quite do a nice bellyflop on my bed and play around with markers yet, but I’m working on it. Did you know you can get paper clips which are shaped like elephants? Make a chain of elephants. The list goes on. And on. Embrace all the moments. Even when you have a good prognosis in front of you, it doesn’t hurt to be aware of the clock. I was taking a whole lot for granted, and this has been quite the smack. And right now, I have a whole lot of rats who deserve a bit better from me, so I’m going to go and make them one hell of a salad. :D

2017: The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World.

Ahmed Rabbani, “Untitled (Binoculars Pointing at the Moon)” (2016) is one of the works by present and former Guantanamo detainees that could be impacted. (image courtesy Art from Guantánsmo Bay exhibition).

Ahmed Rabbani, “Untitled (Binoculars Pointing at the Moon)” (2016) is one of the works by present and former Guantanamo detainees that could be impacted. (image courtesy Art from Guantánsmo Bay exhibition).

3. Guantánamo Inmates: We can’t imagine a more awful position for someone to be in, but the US government is adding to the humiliation of indefinite detentions without trial by deciding that Guantanamo inmates no longer own the art they create, and they will probably destroy it. Hard to see what good could come of this.

Hyperallergic has their list of the powerless up, and unsurprisingly, the bar just gets lower, as in the case of those people detained at Guantanamo. As always, some people maintain their position on the list of the powerless:

5. Female Artists: Most of the stories were anecdotal before, but now studies are reinforcing what we knew already, namely that art made by women sells for almost half their male counterparts. Analyzing auction data and experiments with thousands of respondents, researchers found that the perception of an artist’s gender consistently affects how their work is valued. Now that we have the data, how do we remedy this?

Click on over to Hyperallergic for the full rundown.

A Diverse Eye Chart.

Click for GIANT size.

Click for GIANT size.

This amazing eye chart was put together by George Mayerle, in 1907.

This fantastic eye chart — measuring 22 by 28 inches with a positive version on one side and negative on the other — is the work of German optometrist and American Optometric Association member George Mayerle, who was working in San Francisco at end of the nineteenth century, just when optometry was beginning to professionalise. The chart was a culmination of his many years of practice and, according to Mayerle, its distinctive international angle served also to reflect the diversity and immigration which lay at the heart of the city in which he worked. At the time it was advertised as “the only chart published that can be used by people of any nationality”. Stephen P. Rice, from the National Library of Medicine (who house this copy presented here), explains just how throughly thought through the different aspects of the chart were as regards the aim to be as inclusive as possible:

Running through the middle of the chart, the seven vertical panels test for acuity of vision with characters in the Roman alphabet (for English, German, and other European readers) and also in Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Hebrew. A panel in the center replaces the alphabetic characters with symbols for children and adults who were illiterate or who could not read any of the other writing systems offered. Directly above the center panel is a version of the radiant dial that tests for astigmatism. On either side of that are lines that test the muscular strength of the eyes. Finally, across the bottom, boxes test for color vision, a feature intended especially (according to one advertisement) for those working on railroads and steamboats.

You can also see and download this wonderful chart here.  Via The Public Domain.

Jay.

Bibliothèque Municipale de Troyes, MS 177, Folio 154v. A multi-colored jay with a crest on its head.

Bibliothèque Municipale de Troyes, MS 177, Folio 154v. A multi-colored jay with a crest on its head.

Text Translation:

[Of the jay] Rabanus says of the jay: ‘The jay gets is name from its talkativeness, garrulitas; not, as some would have it, because jays fly in flocks, gregatim; clearly, they are named for the cry they give. It is a most talkative species of bird and makes an irritating noise, and can signify either the empty prattle of philosophers or the harmful wordiness of heretics.’ More can be said of the nature of the jay. For jays signify both gossips and gluttons. For those who devote themselves to gluttony take pleasure, after eating, in repeating gossip and in lending an ear to slander. The jay lives in the woods and flies chattering from one tree to another, as a talkative man ceaselessly tells others about his neighbours, even the shameful things he knows about them. When the jay sees someone pass, it chatters, and if it finds anyone hiding from the world, it does the same, just as a talkative man slanders not only worldly men but also those hidden whom a religious house conceals.

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