Men In Belted Sweaters

Men In Belted Sweaters Back Cover, originally uploaded by moxie-girl.

These are so hideous that I momentarily lost my breath upon first glance. If I ever found myself wearing the ungodly yellow thing in the upper left corner, I would run screaming into the path of the nearest metro bus. The chap in the lower right corner looks as if he may toss his floppy hat up into the air at any second a la Mary Tyler Moore with a happy-go-lucky giggle. I was in first grade in 1971, and I can't remember any man wearing one of these monstrosities.

WTF??!!

Here is another news bit that seriously frustrates me, so, yes, I am one of the people who ponder "why are these guys getting free cars and free gas when the American taxpayer is paying for it?". This is something that deserves a WTF.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102316176&ft=1&f=1014

Deadly Spider hmmm....

I had a feeling that the "deadly" spider wasn't as deadly as initially implied by the overtly dramatic "spider expert"...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090320/ap_on_re_us/deadly_spider

Adiós Winter...

Today, at 7:40 AM eastern time, Winter ends and Spring arrives which makes me want to shout Hallelujah!

In Memoriam...

Natasha Richardson, originally uploaded by sprouseart.

Natasha Richardson
May 11, 1963 - 18 March 2009

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

My Mother's maiden name was Maureen Veronica O'Brien and she was fiercely proud of her Irish heritage. We moved from Massachusetts to Kentucky in 1969 at a time when there were very few Yankee Irish Catholics to be found in that area. As she was registering us for school the first time, when she came to the section of the form asking for "nationality", she wrote the words "Irish American".

Bored and at the office on a Saturday morning...

D.O.A. Ladies - 1946

D.O.A. Ladies - 1946, originally uploaded by sprouseart.

I'm not sure if I have ever posted this image on my blog before or not. Someone just added it as a favorite on flickr so i revisited it and decided to post it here.

This came in a box of a few hundred vintage photos that was given to me a few years back by an acquaintance of mine who found them in an abandoned house.

I love finds like that and I love them even more so when they are offered to me for use in my work.

8 of Pentacles

pents08, originally uploaded by sprouseart.

Maybe it's time that I pulled out my tarot decks again. I've not used them in close to a year, but, in my opinion, they are like riding a bike - a skill that stays with you once mastered.

I've been reading tarot for 31 years now and am considered by some to be quite adept at it. Of course, 31 years of practice will make a person quite adept at anything I imagine.

In any case, after my particularly trying day yesterday, I decided to pull one of my decks from my drawer and pull a random card for clarity for the day.

I used my Golden Tarot deck , which I am very fond of, and I pulled the 8 of Pentacles ( coins in the Golden tarot deck). It was truly a very appropriate card to have synchronistically been pulled from the deck.
You may read about it here - http://goldentarot.com/mico08.htm.

By the way, if you are interested in the tarot, I highly recommend the Golden Tarot deck for it's artistic beauty, elegance, and ease of use.

Not a nice Monday....

Though the weather was lovely today for an early March day at the Mid-Atlantic shore, I had a particularly rough day at the office, but I won't go into detail, because, frankly, I find the whole affair ever so tiresome.

I must add this little thought however -

I wonder if the man realizes how truly despised he is.
No, of course he doesn't. How could he? He's too arrogant, motivated only by greed and selfishness. It seems as if I've known, or have known of, people like this my entire life, and no matter how I try, I just can't find anything about them likable. They are barren, cold hearted, empty, soulless and joyless creatures who purposefully choose to look away from anything beautiful in life.

How awful it must be to be the kind of man that if the majority of people who knew him found out one day that he had dropped dead, their reaction would be either happiness or indifference.

La Strada

La Strada, originally uploaded by sprouseart.

Once or twice a week, we get together with friends and watch a film or two. I was finally able to get my comrades to agree to watch La Strada, one of my favorite Fellini films.

I hadn't seen it since the mid-80's so it was lovely to view it again based simply on fuzzy memories. Of course, it's a magnificent timeless film that doesn't age badly or become dated.

It's such a perfect film on so many levels that it's difficult to describe and best experienced in my opinion. There are moments when it is as sweet and gentle as a delicate baby chick, and then others when it reflects ugly brutality in such a way that it still leaves a shudder even after 55 years.

A wikipedia excerpt contained this mention of a review which I found prescient, "On La Strada’s release in France in 1955, critic Dominique Aubier wrote in Les Cahiers du cinéma that the film “belongs to the mythological class, a class intended to captivate the critics more perhaps than the general public. Fellini attains a summit rarely reached by other film directors: style at the service of the aritist’s mythological universe. This example once more proves that the cinema has less need of technicians - there are too many already - than of creative intelligence. To create such a film, the author must have had not only a considerable gift for expression but also a deep understanding of certain spiritual problems."

La Strada won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1957 and is available from Netflix.

ART PR

Here is a little television interview that occurred a couple of days ago featuring info on the new studios that I am spearheading...

Click on the little gold camera icon above the photo to the left to see the video.

http://www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=9954444&nav=MXEF

A SHI T

0305091906.jpg, originally uploaded by sprouseart.

I was enjoying a glass of wine at a friend's house last night when I saw this scene appear on his big screen television in the other room. Vanna was posing awkwardly in front of this uncompleted puzzle and I just had to snap a quick pic with my phone. Juvenile humor yes, but did it make me giggle a bit? Absolutely.

Requires No Manure!

fun & profit, originally uploaded by miss mouffette.

Why that certainly does look like a satisfied mushroom farmer to me!

At the Houses of Healing in World War I (c.1915)

At the Houses of Healing in World War I (c.1915), originally uploaded by postaletrice.

Wow. What a phenomenal find this is! The imagery in this card screams for a narrative. Perhaps a short story or play!
Hmmm....

Scraggles plays fetch

0620080631.3g2
Originally uploaded by sprouseart

This is an exercise both fun and and sweet that my little black kitty , Scraggles, likes to partake in on occasion when she isn't hiding in the shadows waiting for the sun to set...

Sleep

Sleep, originally uploaded by Ariel (wingsinthewater).

I have come to the conclusion that I don't have trouble sleeping, I just have trouble staying asleep. What a strange, twilight, world one's kitchen becomes when the moon and the sun quietly creep pass one another.

Better than digging a ditch...

Monday - February 16, 2009.

Clearly, it's been one month since my last addition to the Sprouseart.blog. I've been so terribly busy that I mentally placed it one some shelve with the words "and I'll get back to you in just a bit" and then proceeded to forget it completely as I weaved in and out of the many "projects" (as I like to refer to them).

At the theatre, where I am the Associate Director, there is a never ending list of "to do" items that each demand certain amounts of attention and expertise. There are always press releases to be formulated and then submitted, online portals for posting of events to be completed, contracts to review and document, emails and phone calls to be made or returned, and much more. It keeps one on one's toes so to speak.

On Valentine's day, we had a soft "opening" of the Celebration Studios. Overall, for an unofficial event, I think it went well. Most of the artists were in attendance, and they were well received by the public who dropped by in general. There are a few loose ends that need tightening up, all of which should evolve on their own however.

As a group, with I as ringmaster so to speak, decided to go forward with the soft opening in order to coincide with the "Love Letters" performance at the theatre. Hugo, during his pre show introduction, spoke about the studios with the suggestion that the crowd drop in during intermission. It worked well. Well enough that I have a better idea of what went well, what didn't, and what more needs to be done.




Also since my last visit, was my acceptance as the Secretary and Marketing and Advertising Director of the Delaware Charitable Music, Inc. We' re a non-profit working to "honor and promote jazz and blues, the two original American music forms, and to educate and support young area musicians and allow them to interact with some of the world's finest performers in a professional concert atmosphere."

Pretty cool, huh? There is the logo that I designed for our big event in March at Dover Downs - The First State BluesFest featuring Dana Fuchs and Sonny Rhodes. Much more can be read about the BluesFest on our web site ( which I designed as well) at www.demusic.org.

Overall, I'm pleased that the reason that I've not been able to drop by here for the last month is due to my being busy with creative projects and not because of some other occurrence much less inspiring. All of the projects that I am involved with currently involve tremendous amounts of work and dedication, most of which I am either under compensated for or not compensated at all. But, I am working in the arts, and as an artist, I appreciate that. Besides, the networking is great and with each new thread I form in the web, the stronger it becomes.

Besides, as my dear departed mother was oft to say, "It's better than digging a ditch".

Dare I?

I have the opportunity to attend a phenomenal late night Inaugural After Party at a very exclusive nightclub in Washington, DC from 11:00 PM - 4:00 AM which will truly be packed with Hollywood celebs....
Hmmm...

Your followers...

Just when you thought I may never appear here again, it is I, after a 3 week hiatus. To be fair, there has been much on my plate as of late keeping me busier than usual. I found this online this morning and felt the need to share it - make of it what you will.




I think it would be fun to have seen the original. The bucolic scene surrounding Jesus and his companion present lush rolling hills of some rural area, dare I say, possibly, somewhere south of the Mason Dixon line. Of course, they could also simply be strolling about the countryside of some Midwestern locale deep in the heartland. In the background to the left is the hint of either an old farmhouse or church. More likely than not however, it is a church - at least in my opinion. I mean, really, Jesus is there strolling about with his much shorter friend.

While the chap on the right is smartly dressed, he's certainly no style match for Jesus. There is a very popular and chic salon here in town where a man's haircut costs $32. Last week, I was almost certain that I caught a glimpse of Jesus ducking in the spot trying not to be noticed, now I'm certain it was him. His stylist does a fine job in any case. In fact, he looks like a strapping combination of Charlton Heston, Mel Gibson, and Al Pacino.

I must admit that I am a great fan of this type of humor, though I'm not sure what it's called. It's Monty Pythonesque in the sense that an image is manipulated and then used to convey an entirely new meaning, usually humorous and ironic, as is the case above. In fact, this reminds me of my very first post in this blog a few years back which documented a very odd encounter I had at a local tire repair shop:

http://sprouseart.blogspot.com/2005/04/let-he-who-have-no-tread.html

I'll have to research a bit and see if I can discover the name of this mode of humor.