Illustration Friday: Prepare

This is my entry for the wonderful weekly art website, Illustration Friday.  This week's theme was prepare.

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This is called an interrobang.  Meet the interrobang.

‽

Cool, right?  This little baby was invented in the Sixties to replace this thing: "What the?!"  Now you can shout a question or express your angry disbelief with one perfectly packaged punctuation mark.  I discovered it today, and now my life is complete.

Plus, it's just fun to say.  Say it.  Interrobang, interrobang, interrobang.

I am so using this from now on just to confuse people.  But mostly 'cause it's cool.

(For any interested, the keyboard shortcut in Microsoft Word is ALT+8253)

Interrobang.

Something That's Been Going on for Way too Long

Beneath youtube videos with copyrighted material: "no copyright intended."  What?  Did I miss a copyright infringement loophole?

Does Anybody Else See It?

Michael Jackson

Freddie Mercury

When I saw a google image search for Freddie Mercury, I told my dad: "that one is Michael Jackson, not Freddie Mercury."  But lo and behold, it was indeed the latter.  Is it possible that Michael Jackson sculpted himself after Freddie Mercury?  I recieved a similar jolt recently when I first saw this video comparing Bob Fosse and Michael Jackson dance styles.  Observe.

Uncanny, is it not?

I Made a Recipe!

That's right.  I, Christine Haynie, am so advanced in my cooking skills that I have created my own recipe.  Two in fact.  I made dinner for Rachel and I due to the temporary absence of my parents, and she liked it so much that she said I should write it down.  It is a very good meal for a summer day, and I quite like it myself.  Dearest world, here are the recipes.  (And dearest sisters, you really ought to try them.  Especially you Sarah.  The dessert is sugar free.  But not in a gross way.)

Garden Pasta:

Pasta al dente

Olive oil

1 egg per person

Mozzarella cheese

Dash of milk (optional)

Carrots: cut round and lengthwise

Sliced Purple Onion

Sliced, chopped or otherwise broken up green olives

Other colorful vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, etc.)

Various seasonings (I used spaghetti seasoning, garlic powder, lime zest, pepper and salt.  Basil would be lovely too.)

Sauté and season onion and carrots and other vegetables friendly to being cooked in olive oil.  Place into separate bowl.  Boil Pasta.  Scramble eggs, cheese, and milk together, removing from heat while they are fluffy and still almost raw.  Toss pasta, eggs, and vegetables (sautéed and otherwise) together.  Serve onto plates and top with olive oil and seasonings (may I highly recommend using more than just pepper and salt?).   If you would like, save out some of the vegetables to place on top.  Enjoy!  (Note: I have not put amounts on the ingredients.  I did not measure them and you do not need measurements.  You know how many people you are serving and how much you like.)

The Fruit Cup Dessert:

Milk

Various fruits (canned or fresh peaches and strawberries work well.  Any other berry would be fantastic as well, but frozen fruit would probably be disgusting)

Lime zest

Fresh mint leaves

Pepper (trust me on this)               

Fill small cups or ice cream dishes with fruit.  Pour in the milk.  Top with lime zest and pepper.  Garnish with mint leaves.

I would have liked to share a picture of the result, but the camera directly at hand was full.  At any rate, the effect was charming as they are both very colorful and summery.  I am thinking that  this dinner would go well with lemonade (the homemade kind).  So, what are you waiting for?  Go ahead.  Try it out.  Make it your own.  See how you like the recipe of your very own friend and/or sister.  Now if only I could learn to make something besides pasta...

Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday is a cool website I recently discovered.  Every Friday there is a new word on the website.  During the next week people of any skill level send in their entries based on that word.  I think this is an awesome  concept, and I have included my entry for this week, "bicycle," here.

The Danger of Caging Beauty

This poem is about the sense of longing I get when I see something really beautiful.  That may lead me to take incessant pictures of a sunset when I know they will never do it justice.  It may also lead me to kiss a baby's face off or run through a perfect field of snow just to get at it although I know very well that I am only ruining it.  It is about the elusiveness of beauty, and also the danger of trying to capture it.  The second one (which I wrote first) is similar, but has quite a different tone.

Lusting for Beauty

I don't approve of caging beauty

As mankind likes to do

They press flowers, and carry home the ocean in a jar

They do not know that flowers fade

When crushed by heartless paper

They forget the ocean is not wild, is not blue, imprisoned

Then when they see the beauty gone

They feel betrayed, they know not why

They do not know that beauty owned is beauty gone away

'Tis like the seagulls and the birds

That let us watch them play

But when we try to grab at them they flee from us forever

A foolish man thinks he is master

Of the world he lives in

And when his mastered beauty pales he doubts that it was there

He does not know that he destroys

That which he desires to save

He wants so much to own the world that he forgets to love it

A man who owns a woman

Loves her not; she is obtained

But when they do not own, but have, their joy can last forever

Praises be that those who could

"Just eat a baby up"

Have the good sense not to; for they'd kill joy trying to find it

The man who had the golden goose

Had riches day by day

But lusting for it all at once his wealth was done away

To Elusiveness

What art thou?  Thou art a cherry blossom, a cricket’s song, a sky.

Where art thou?   Thou art in laughter, in heaven, on blades of grass bedewed

Who can understand an infant in arms, asleep?

Who can recall the wild ecstasy of rain and thunder that make a tempest of the night?

Thou art the poet’s muse

Lives have dwindled, and lives have grown

In trying to capture thee

Cruel and coy beauty, why can we not hold thee?

None may manufacture thee

Oh, highest degree of sacrilege!

Thou sprite of the morning, thou fairy of the night

Plucking thy petals cannot make us understand

Thou art free; we are thy slaves, oh Beauty

Though we seek to put thee in a cage,

We are led along, toiling and hunting after thee

But we learn happiness from glimpses of thy perfection.