What I’m supposed to be doing

Lately I’ve been too busy at my job to update Fancy Notions until I get home, and this has been causing me some pain. I long for the days when I could spend my workday doing something fulfilling… something other than “work.” I have to remember to keep my nose to the grindstone, however. As a good friend said recently, “Keeping your job is the new promotion.” Yippee. Nothing motivates as much as the threat of imminent poverty and no health insurance.

Thankfully, artist David Fullarton’s installation for the Sisyphus Office exhibition in Houston is giving me some solace. Between his accurate depiction of mind-numbing hours with too many Post-Its, Alan Tanksley’s paperclip chandelier, and Angry Girlfriend’s Binder Clip Dress, I feel like people are finally putting office supplies to good use.

Pas d’eau

We’re going to a pirate wedding today. I didn’t love any of the pirate cartoons that I watched in preparation, so let’s look at a sailor cartoon instead, shall we?

Hm – that quit in a rather suspiciously abrupt manner. If anybody knows what happens at the end, let me know.

Stay safe

Benny and Smoothie and I are going out of town for the weekend. I was a little worried at first because I know that being in a strange town can make you an easy target for criminals, so I’m glad Benny found this self-defense video for us to study:

I think we’re going to be fine.

Word of the day for Wednesday, May 27th

Hey, quick – what’s this called?

It’s an arroba. Arrrrrrrroba! Well, in Spain it’s called an arroba, anyway. The story gets kind of complicated about why it’s called an arroba, but it basically comes from an old unit of measurement called an amphora and a letter some guy wrote when he was trying to sell stuff from a boat. Yawn. Let’s get to the good part. Italians call it a snail, and apparently Serbs and Bulgarians call it a monkey. As far as I can tell, it’s still just called an “at sign” in English. Can’t we do better than that?

Welcome to the Louvre

I’ve hesitated about making a post about a certain rich repository of storefront art at the corner of Vermont Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, because like the Mona Lisa’s nicked elbow at the hands of a Bolivian rock thrower, this place’s masterpiece has been desecrated.

But I’ve rethought my position. The whole place isn’t ruined by this one flaw, and to ignore the entire place is to ignore the other amazing works on display. So let me rectify this and share my favorites with you.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” moaned the harmonica

Still Life with Umbrella, Hot Dog, and Belt

Et Quid Amabo Nisi Quod Aenigma Est?

Cinderella’s Christmas

Eternal Eye Mittens and the Horror of Pubescence

Oh geez, I can’t keep you here all day. I have so many more favorites. Anyway, this tour has made me think about what art really is, and whether my “it’s been desecrated” judgment about the altered masterpiece depicting the soldier in combat has been made too hastily.

Nope. That’s still bullshit.

Happy Memorial Day

I know that on Memorial Day we’re supposed to honor our war dead rather than living veterans that we honor on Veterans Day, but there’s a certain veteran I really need to salute today – Lance Corporal William Windsor, who retired from the British Army this week.

Yeah, looks like he’s about due for retirement. According to Wikipedia, he’d been having problems toeing the line for a while:

“On 16 June 2006,^[7] a parade was held to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s 80th birthday,^[5] at the Episkopi base near Limassol, Cyprus on the Mediterranean island’s south coast.^[5] Invited dignitaries included the ambassadors of Spain, Netherlands and Sweden and the Argentine commander of United Nations’ forces on Cyprus.^[12]

The deployment to Cyprus with the 1st Battalion was Billy’s first overseas posting,^[7] and despite being ordered to keep in line, he refused to obey.^[7] He failed to keep in step,^[12] and tried to headbutt a drummer.^[13] The Goat Major, Lance Corporal Dai Davies, 22, from Neath, South Wales, was unable to keep him under control.^[12]

As a result of his actions, Billy was marched before his commanding officer, Huw James, after being reported for “unacceptable behaviour”^[5] and “lack of decorum”.^[12] He was reported through the chain of command, accused of disobeying a direct order,^[12] and following a disciplinary hearing was demoted from lance corporal to fusilier.^[12][1] The change meant that other fusiliers in the regiment no longer had to stand to attention when Billy walked past, as they had to when he was a lance corporal.^{[7] “}

That disciplinary hearing sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me, but no matter. Eventually he regained his rank, allowing him back into the Officers’ Mess to be served and saluted by ordinary grunts once again.

William will spend his retirement at the Whipsnade Zoo at Bedfordshire. Thank you, Lance Corporal Windsor, for your dedicated service. I’m sure the people of Great Britain will not quickly forget you.

Sorry, Charley

I love a well-done public service announcement, especially one with animal teachers. I’m partial to my childhood friends Charley Horse and Humphrey Hambone, but I think Charley the cat from Britain runs a close second. He’s a big know-it-all when it comes to following Mom’s instructions, but always seems to get into trouble when fish or sausages are around. Poor Charley.

Dead end

Wow. I just fell in love with a car, but its whereabouts and any further information about it seem to be eluding me. Ain’t that love for you?

You would think that with all those steampunk geeks running around these days with their coal-powered digital watches and distressed copper-and-oak underpants, there would be a flood of information online about something called a Borg-Warner Vintage Car of the Future, but no dice. Two guys total seem to have all the information I can find, and all their links to museums and festivals dedicated to the love of this car and its designer Rowland Emett seem to be dead.

A lot of Rowland Emett’s drawings strike me as photographs of the inside of my head, so I guess it’s not a surprise that I should love this car so much.

The latest information I found about The Car was that it had been restored in 1998 and was residing at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, but these days the Museum of Science and Industry seems to be more fascinated with Harry Potter than Rowland Emett, so it’s probably sitting ignored in a warehouse. Hmm. Maybe I can satisfy myself with a visit to the Ontario Science Centre to see some of Emett’s other creations. If not, I’m probably going to have to occupy myself building my own moon-probe lunacycle just to take my mind off The Car. Ah – l’amour, l’amour…

On a roof, you get eggroll

Today I’m going to put forth the notion that my designation of storefront art should not just apply to spectacular works of visual art on places of business, but of sophisticated wordplay as well. Comedic literature is one of the arts, after all. As our first example of this, allow me to share with you the clever pun presented by a poultry store in Chinatown:

For those of you not aware of the term, “dressed poultry” means a chicken sold with head, feet, and entrails intact, not a chicken wearing a straw hat or carrying a parasol. Man, those chickens are dumb.

Load-bearing walls

I live in a part of Los Angeles that used to have a substantial bear population that has since all but disappeared, so my recent wildlife sightings in the neighborhood have given me not a small amount of joy:

Initially they seemed pretty shy, but recently the bears have been opening up. They’re quite polite:

One has even moved into my neighborhood.

At first I thought that these new neighbors might be the solution to my recent earwig house-infestation problems, since I know bears like to eat grubs and things, but then I realized that it’s a little presumptuous of me to start thinking about what the new neighbors can do for me. Also, they seem to be busy with a lot of other hobbies. Like art appreciation.

Maybe I should just invite them over for a Memorial Day barbecue instead. They may be the only guests who don’t mind the earwigs that are sure to be in the potato salad.

UPDATE 5/26/09 – The polite bears on Glendale Blvd. are now gone (curse you, new metal rollup gates), but there is more information about the bears and their human creator on the Corralitas Red Car Property blog – following some other links will get you to more bears. Hooray – more bears please!