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1,000 Followers Later
Imagine if that 1,000 followers referred to this lonely website! Well it doesn’t. It actually refers to my Instagram art account (link is in the right hand side panel). I reached this dizzying height on September 7th, much to my surprise. As I’ve discussed elsewhere (But Is It Art?), I never expected anyone to be remotely interested in what I produce and so I’m delighted and embarrassed in equal measure that people have spared the time in their busy lives to check out my stuff. Just in case you don’t have an Instagram account I thought I’d add a gallery here to show off my art posts from Instagram. Please remember these are examples of hobby art, self-taught and very subjective. Click on the thumbnail to see the whole image. I’d love to hear your views in…
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Gamers, Vampires, Volcanoes, Demons and A Superhero Kid
My reading for July 2024 was eclectic as always but with the usual break from reality and accompanied by a cast of memorable characters. These are just post-it notes style remarks on the books I’ve read this month. TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin When Sam catches sight of Sadie at a crowded train station one morning he is catapulted straight back to childhood, and the hours they spent immersed in playing games. Their spark is instantly reignited and sets off a creative collaboration that will make them superstars. It is the 90s, and anything is possible. What comes next is a decades-long tale of friendship and rivalry, fame and art, betrayal and tragedy, perfect worlds and imperfect ones. And, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. My daughter, A,…
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Kamala Harris & The Democratic Convention
Apologies to Stephen King but as I read the title for this post I couldn’t help thinking about his short story – Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption – not the story itself just the rhythm of the title. It, like the title of this post, has the ring of a name for a 1960s Motown band. That I’m afraid is the only place where all three intersect. The first is genius, the band might have had some potential, but this is likely to be a rambling rant. To paraphrase the old saying, we all know opinions are like a’holes – everbody’s got one and they’re all full of shit. It’s a line I use regularly and everytime I do I’m conscious it includes me. So of course this post should be read with that caveat firmly…
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Memories….An Urban Myth
The prompt was – what was your earliest memory of being in danger? Well I can’t tell you that but I will tell you about the time I was nearly abducted by an urban myth instead. I lived for the first 3 years of my life in a local authority house on the northside of Dublin. The house was nothing special – what suburban terraced house is – but it was home and it was safe, or at least that’s what I thought. It appears though that it wasn’t as safe as I thought it was. As the story goes, shortly before we moved across the city to another end-of-terrace house in a very similar local authority estate, I was rescued by the quick thinking of our next door neighbour’s daughter. Apparently I was standing on the…
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The Artful Dodger
ENCOURAGEMENT Following a conversation late last year with Granddaughter #2 about her love of art and plans for the future, I was a little surprised at her reticence to show off her work online the way so many young people do, especially since she planned on a career involving art. She is reasonably confident in the art she produces and receives praise all the time from her family and teachers, so the reaction made little sense to me at the time. We talked about the need for her to build an art portfolio to secure her desired place in further education and eventually employment, but still she was shying away from showing off her work. So I said I would set up a social media account dedicated to showing the world my “art” if she would post…
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The Great Blogger Abduction
To criminally paraphrase the Bonnie Tyler song: where have all the bloggers gone and where are all the blogs? A scant couple of years ago I spent a ridiculous amount of time (thanks to my then newly acquired retired person status) scouting for personal blogs I could read, relate to, and be inspired by when writers block dropped in unannounced. I was a little discouraged at the time because it required a focused search – largely because I wanted to stay away from the “influencer’ type bullshit blogs that have swamped the web over the past few years – and was relieved when I could find some interesting sites written by a wide variety of people. In an effort to get back to keeping something akin to a regular posting regime for this blog I went back…
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But Is It Art?
When I added an ‘Art’ category to this website I was being hugely optimistic and fully intended getting deeper into art. I’ve been making ‘art’ ever since I could hold a crayon in my pudgy hand, just like every other kid, but nobody ever thought of what I was making as art – not even my mother and face it mothers are the best promoters and general PR person a kid could possibly have. I can’t criticise them because I never considered what I did as art either, maybe something on the way to art or at least the beginnings of a journey that might see the production of art towards its end. On reflection we were all wrong. Okay I’m not claiming what I make is good art but, even based on the dictionary definition of…
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The God of Small Things
All my life I’ve had a problem finding value in the day-to-day actions of everyday life. It’s not that I craved constant drama or anything of that sort, in fact I tend to shy away from drama even when it’s a genuine crisis. I just never learned to worship at the altar of the God of small things. Maybe it’s repetition that causes me a problem, although I just spent hours over the past three days organising hundreds of music files by dragging them to new locations on a hard drive. Or possibly the lack of challenge involved in doing things that require little or no new learning. It could be the pointlessness of doing something, like cleaning or repairing, that will simply need to be done again and probably sooner rather than later. Honestly I don’t…
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MEANWHILE…#5
This is what I’m getting up to lately… Reading: Just finished “The Half Heroes” series by Ian W. Sainsbury. Loved it but couldn’t help feeling the third book was a little rushed at the end. Rereading Julian May’s “Saga of the Exiles” Series after 40 years. Finished book 1 The Many Coloured Land and most of the way through book 2 The Golden Torc. Every bit as good as I remembered it to be, despite some language and references that would cause a bit of a stink if it was published recently. The series is out of print and I had to buy the four novels from an online site selling second hand books. When the ban cheile saw the well thumbed books she was amazed I’d actually have books that battered. But the urge to read…
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Review: Joe Pickett
The series follows the life of Joe Pickett, a Wyoming-based game warden, and his family in the small town of Saddlestring and the surrounding wilderness of Yellowstone National Park. What did you like best about the series? There was a lot to like about this series. The characters were relatable and by-and-large well written; the location was stunning, but not overwhelming – sometimes the photography can subdue the characters and plot when the setting is this beautiful; while another “police” procedural it had enough new elements to hold my interest. What did you like least about the series? I felt the female characters were a little underdeveloped and secondary. MaryBeth Pickett was a lawyer that gave up practising law so Joe could become a game warden (!), her mother picks by men for life partners, the female deputy is…
