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I’ve given up asking clients for logos before just checking for them at from brandsoftheworld.com. I can’t fathom why every company’s logo ends up as a jpeg.

Vikings is one of my favorite shows. Great characters.

I’ve especially liked scenes with Harbard lately. He’s an amazing, intriguing character that embodies the mythology and superstition that were rampant in that time.

My favorite line of his came during the last show, “Possession is the opposite of love”. Can’t stop thinking about how true that is. Harbard loves all the women in the village, who are lonely as their husbands are off raiding. Alyssa, one of these women, gets irate, and that’s when Harbard tells her the quote.

I also watch the entertaining “Girls” on HBO. It’s basically an NC-17 version of “Friends”. All they do is try to possess everything–the city, their lifestyles, eachother. The show portrays a sense of this amazing friendship they share, and these idyllic lives they lead, but I can’t relate. First of all, no one lives like that. Shows like “Girls” and “Friends” celebrate possession. Characters that live like that are never happy in real life. They embrace the opposite of love, as Harbard says.

I only post recipes that I make up and are simple, easy, and cheap. I’m a terrible cook because I’m impulsive, lazy, and AADHD.
However, this one usually works:

• Half a cabbage, cut up however you like it. I sliver mine with a razor sharp Global.
• 1 TBs Sesame Oil
• 2 TBs Rice Vinegar
• 1 TBs Black Pepper
• 1 Ts Salt

Mix it all up and eat it now or wait until it gets even better.

As soon as I was considering life after high school, I had my heart set on Cooper Union. I wanted to make “cool looking shit”, I was good at it and CU was where the best in the world did it. Plus it was in Manhattan, my favorite place in the world and a 45 minute train ride. Plus it was free, and that to me was everything.

I could have afforded to pay for Pratt, or SVA, or RISD; I applied and got into all of them. My parents told me I could go anywhere; and considering my sister was at Amherst College, one of the most expensive schools in the world, and my brother ended up at Harvard, they weren’t kidding. But for me, it was the street-cred that getting into CU, where only 5% of the kids who think they’re good at making cool shit get in, that was so alluring.

I remember attending the info/interested students day thing, sitting in an auditorium, being handed a packet of instructions on cool shit I had to make to prove my worthiness, and hearing the MC, and oldish white dude who was probably pretty good at making cool shit, send us off with a “now go work your little butts off!”

Something about that rubbed me the wrong way. I got it; me the the hundred-odd other art nerds were a bunch of wannabees  and CU owed us nothing. I looked over the packet when I got home, and saw 5 or 6 assignments: draw the plans for a new invention that tells time, paint an interior space with only solid black shapes, render an object as it morphs from one thing to another, and a couple others.

And I let it sit there. I had no inspiration to do it; it felt forced, and I kept thinking of that asshole treating us like sheep, as I had come to think of him. Days flew by as they do, and the deadline was in a week. I panicked.

It must have also been a very hard time in my life, and other things were causing me stress—my brother Matt was a constant source of disruption, I was trying to make state qualifying times for the 50yard freestyle, I’m sure my romantic heart was being torn up by a variety of love interests, and none of my friends from the previous class were around at school; they were around though, distracting me with all the things we loved to do and no island of school time in common to do it. I missed classes and my grades suffered.

So, staring at the pile of assignment sheets, and in a fit of white hot frustration, I punched my bed. I thought I was punching the mattress, but that was just the sheet hanging over the wooden railing. I shattered two metacarpals in my right hand—my art hand. The cast that ended up there shortly afterward prohibited any of the deftness and agility I relied on in my making of cool shit. I did the best I could with my left, but the results were hurried, shaky, and incoherent.

I took the train in and dropped it off a few minutes before CU closed on deadline day, although I knew I was wasting my time. And I was; the rejection letter, probably written by the asshole MC, came a few weeks later. It’s been a source of regret my whole life.

I ended up at a variety of SUNY schools, sometimes making cool shit and sometimes blowing it off, but never really feeling like I was in the right place. Eventually things worked out, once I connected with the right people and found faculty who didn’t put up with my bullshit, and inspired me to actually work. Still, any time I see CU on a resume, or meet people who’ve gone there, I’m confronted with feelings of immense respect, burning jealousy, and nagging curiosity: why were they able work their little butts off when I couldn’t?

I’ll try to post the stuff I watch with reviews this year. I saw some great stuff last year and meant to do this, but didn’t :/

1. Barbarians (Shudder). Cool concept. So many dumb and useless scenes. Too bad, since the actors were great.

Quick summary of the trip:

The conference:

The location:

Weather: was awesome

Family: Loved seeing my Mom, Dad, Clare and Bob, walking around and learning the neighborhood

The Barnes Museum was too crowded. But this made it all ok.

Food: Spice End was the best thing I ate on the trip. Second best was Tir Na Nog because it was pretty good and my folks were there. Woulda been first except for the Papyrus logo. Worst was the disappointing cheese steak at some place I can’t remember. I don’t know what I was expecting. I don’t know how you could possibly beat Jim’s Steakout’s Diablo.

Travel: American Airlines came through nicely  My first experience with Uber was bad. I downloaded the app and had to put in my CC info. Being a typical traveler, screw that wallet noise. Especially after seeing a 40-60$ estimate to get me to the hotel, and the long line of GOF taxis waiting to bring me there, and especially the quote of $25 from the guy in the front. My last experience with Uber was good. A bunch of west coast dudes had an Uber XL reserved with an extra spot. They were all over 7′ tall but there was room for me. One of them (from Arizona, didn’t catch his name) paid for it and wouldn’t take my $, so thank you AZ dude.

 

Good day, classes were unstructured but engaging ( I hope)
Morning saw us getting passports for the kids. I wish it had been fun, but it wasn’t, because of the tide of grumpiness that gradually enveloped us.
Afternoon was great, a quiet time teaching the intern and students.
It’s the one-on-one interactions that make it fun. It’s the best way to teach.
Now I’m at snyder bar getting some wings, having a Guinness. All ok