Saturday, April 14, 2007

CULTURAL FALLOUT: updated!!



(not to be confused with Cultural Snow, which does not glow and has no detectable aroma)

Well, I done did something with my collection. Parts of it, anyway. I can't help but think of all the fun I could have with these images and a really rooty-zooty graphics program. Images from the 50's and 60's in particular practically beg to be pilloried like this.

Yes, click for bigness. Don't ask too much of these; just getting them to this place almost made my computer burst into flames. Not to mention my brain.








AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST.......



...Any of you younger ladies who have any doubts as to the way things used to be for women...? Lose them now.
Feminism exists for a VERY GOOD REASON.
I have a hundred ads just as twisted as this one...and all of them came from magazines your mother or grandmother thought nothing of leaving out on the coffee table. I remember these days. THIS is the kind of shit that used to saturate popular culture. And remember; popular culture is conservative by it's very definition. Extrapolate from that what went on in everyday life, my darlings.
Rant over.
_____________________________________

CONFIDENTIAL FOR TIM FOOTMAN:

Friday, April 13, 2007

pop detrius

I collect paper ephemera...old trash magazines, mainly...but I own a wide variety of things. Old cookbooks, newspapers, tickets, menus, programmes...anything that had a real dynamic look to it, anything that made me smile, I've been grabbing up for years.
Note: the pictures that follow are worth a click to enlarge. They're legible and the detail is pretty good. I just may be getting better at this stuff.


I particularly like to come upon things in less than ideal condition, because then I can savage them up for collages and 'found poetry' (which I maintain I invented years ago but never got credit for.)

Here's the problem: I've organized. I like to organize, and I like to see what kinds of categories my brain has been cooking up while I wasn't aware of it. So fine; I have tons of images from the 20's on up to the early 70's all laid flat in manilla envelopes, separated into categories and labelled.

...But for why?

I look through them every few months and I enjoy them. Then I put them all away again.



This is making me nuts! I am not the sort of person that keeps things around if they aren't useful. This stuff is just accumulating. Pointlessly.

I've framed some and display them...well and good for the few I want to look at for awhile. Others simply appeal to me as whole objects...the age of the paper, the style of the art, the content, the signs of use, the smell.

Archival stabilization is out of the question unless I can do it myself, for cheap. Nothing here is commercially valuable.

Maybe this bothers me more than it should because I grew up with a person who had OCD- the hoarding variation...and I'm really leery of assigning emotional value to objects and owning. I'm in no danger of this stuff taking over, though. The whole collection lives in three suitcases.



Owning these things does make me feel rather 'wealthy'... at least, they seem very 'important' to me. I just really, really like old graphic art, and I really, really like old lowbrow publications. But I don't want to be like Scrooge McDuck in his money vault, fingering my old copies of Movie Mirror and chuckling alone in a room.
gaaaaaah!

Ideas? thoughts, suggestions, me toos...all welcome, y'all.

Here's one bit of trivia I've learned while poling my pirogue through the sloughs of American culture......

1. What popular household product was also marketed as douche?

a. Orange Glo
b. Scope Mouthwash
c. Ipana Toothpaste
d. Neatsfoot Oil
e. Pledge Paste Wax
f. Mop and Glo Floor Wax
g. Pine-Sol
e. Spic-And-Span
f. Mumm

....The answer my friends, is blowin' in the wind. Do you know? I do.
And I have proof. So tune in next time and find out!

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

A Trip to England which is in europe ( kind of on the side of it)

Maybe if you were going on vacation you might like to go to England. This is about England so that you can read it and know what it's going to be like and not have to be embarrassed because you don't know anything.

PEOPLE
Everyone in England has a title only it's not Mr. or Mrs like here. You have to say either 'Sir' something or other or 'Lady' something or other when you talk to them. They have other ranks too, like duke, earl or lieutenant. You have to bow when you meet somebody.

Everything is fancy. All the clothes are really cool. The men wear wigs, and their clothes look like what like pirates wear, only better and not torn up. The ladies have long dresses made out of silk that cost a million dollars! They have big poofy sleeves and sometimes even real jewels on their clothes for decoration, not fake ones. They can do that if they feel like it. Their houses are full of big paintings, and velvet, and really nice wallpaper, and gold on everything. The people use real silver to eat with. That's why they call it 'silverware'. Ours over here isn't made of silver. It's like chrome or something.

All the people who aren't like a lord or something are peasants. Not like the bird. No, these are like servants and farmers and maids in waiting. They do all the work and everyone else is rich and says 'Oh Jeeves, pour me a cup of tea my good man' and then they just sit and the peasant does it. And the peasants have to clean the house and everything.

Sometimes the rich people are really mean to them but most of them are pretty nice. If they aren't the peasants will have a war and stab pitchforks through them because that's what they have and nobody would suspect them, like, 'Oh, there's a peasant walking down the street with a pitchfork, ho hum'. But they'll stick it right through you. So they have to be nice.

When the kids are little they have to go to these schools where they make everyone wear neckties and the teachers are really mean. They have to live there and not see their parents except for like around Christmas for a really short couple of days. Even if they're not bad. Plus they don't let the boys and the girls even go to the same school. The boys have to be boyfriends with each other until they're old enough to get married, then they get married to one of the girls from the girls schools and then go live in a castle and have children. The maids have to change all the diapers.

Everyone lives in a castle. Except the peasants. They live in cottages. A cottage is a small house and theres hay on the roof because they can't afford shingles.

DANGER IN ENGLAND
Vikings are dangerous. They come from Dutch Holland, which floods all the time. They want to have a new land so they keep invading England a lot. But they still can't live there. Will they win? Nobody knows this question.

Pirates know that England is full of rich people so there are pirates everywhere in these huge ships with sails on them. You have to be really careful. You could be watching one direction, but the pirates can just sail their ships around to the other side of the island and sneak up on your town. Sometimes the pirates have swords but mainly they use cannons that fire grenades and your whole town gets on fire, and all the people run away and then the pirates go in and steal all the stuff that isn't burned up. And then they sail away until they need more stuff.

Way back in olden days there might have been dragons but they all got killed by the knights. I think they were a type of dinosaurs that could breathe fire, but nobody has discovered them yet.

Plus robbers and other crime people.

Varlets are bad. The only steal very small things.

Knaves
are dangerous. They steal pie.

WARS
Hitler was really bad and tried to take over England. Then the English guys bombed him and let all the prisoners free and then the war was over!

GOVERNMENT
England has a queen, which is so, so cool. She is the boss of the whole land. Other countries have to have a president. We have a president. The president is boring.

He doesn't go to wars. He has to sit in an office and he can't even look out the window because a whole bunch of reporters would try and take pictures of the inside of his place and then maybe spies could get ahold of them and make plans to sneak in. But he can have a pet, like a dog or a cat.

England has a Queen, which is a lady king, and she rules everyone in the whole country and all the people and makes all the rules for everything.

Everyone has to do what she tells them. And if someone goes against the law, she says 'Off with their heads!' and then they get their heads cut off on this big slicer thing that comes down and whack! and then your heads lying there in like this bowl and blood is shooting out of your neck and it's really sick. But sometimes she could cut off your head too with a sword.
She can. She's the queen.

When there's a war she orders the whole war. All the knights come and fight, and the air force goes over and bombs the other guys until they give up, and the queen says 'OK, this fight is done, we are the winners!'. And the ones that lose have to pay her 1 billions of dollars because they started it. And then they're poor, and the queens says' You have to come be part of my land now!" and they have to.

The queen is top. Next are the prince and the princess, who are the queens little boy and little girl. When she dies one takes over. Then the other one is still a prince or a princess, but they don't get to run anything... just go around and be rich and have carriages and wear diamonds and rubies and gold and emeralds. And they get to wear a crown too. But littler than the queen one.

When someone does something really nice or famous, the queen makes them a knight. She dubs them on the head with her sword (it doesn't even really hurt) They might think she's going to cut their head off but they hae to just be very careful. But she says 'Rise, sir so and so!' (She just makes up a name.) And then they can get away! And they're not dead! And now they have to show up and be a knight if theres a war, but they get to wear armour and have a horse and be rich plus be in parades!

TRANSPORTATION
Only the rich people have cars. Some of the peasants can have trucks. They have doctors, though. Everyone rides horses.

You can take an airplane to get to England, or a big ship, or a submarine. You can't get to it on land.

GROCERIES
Everyone lives on farms. They raise sheep and cows. Probably some vegetables. They have to make their own clothes. You can go to jewelery stores there. They have Inns, which is like a McDonalds only older fashioned . You can have things like soup or stew, and beer, and water.
They know how to make all their own stuff. Even scissors! They can knit and do all sewing. They invented american cheese. They invented pies. Only they put weird stuff like birds and potatoes in them, not the right stuff like apples because they don't know how to do them good. They have olden ways still.

HISTORY OF PILGRIMS
That's why we say 'they live in the old country'. Because we live in the new America country, and so we're the new people, but they stayed behind because there wasn't any more room left on the Mayflower so the pilgrims said they had to stay in the old country and do everything the old way. We get to have electricity and television. But we have a boring president who I don't think even does anything, except be on television. That is the suck part because a queen would be way cooler. She has way cooler clothes and wears a long cape like Superman. Everyone would be proud of her.

So go visit England and be very nice to all the people. It is a nice place; there is a lot of old castles and ruins to see and you can meet royal people too. Have fun!

____________________
(when i was very little my grandmother would tell me stories about the 'olden days'. when she'd get tired of that she'd ask me to tell her a story instead, and give me a subject. between the two of us, cracking up laughing and drawing pictures for illustrations, we came up with some doozies! like this one!)

kentucky fried crow, extra crispy

....Dang. That was a goodie, but unfortunately not an accurate-ie.

Juicy as the story was, it was not true. I got the name Don and Tim mixed up.

Still:
E is still a twat
Tim Imus is a twat too, but a local twat; not a nationally notorious twat like DON IMUS.

E tripped over her tits publically when she hooked up with Tim Imus, which makes me laugh, because 1. I hate her, and 2. it cost her money, which I know frosted the fuck out of her.

thanks to Claire for pointing this out for me!

...and yes, I know, nobody knows what I'm talking about. Fortunately you don't need to feel alone in this, do you. *shuffles off, head hanging*

Monday, April 09, 2007

NEW AND IMPROVED UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: An open letter to Canada

Dear entire nation of Canada:


I would like to apologize for the Minuteman Militia idiots in their pickup trucks parked on our side of Boundary Road with their binoculars and spotting scopes pointed towards your country. 99.99976% of us do not support this movement. We know it is lame. We know they are lame. We are embarrassed.

NOT ALL AMERICANS ARE RIGHT-WING MORONS.
I promise you.

These vigilante antics gives them the illusion of having a set while actually signifying nothing. Come the fall of night they run home to their economy-sized jars of Vaseline and whack off to the Star Spangled Banner, leaving this highly strategic stretch of our international boundary vulnerable to invasion by undercover Al Quaida operatives masquerading as deer, elk and Hereford cattle.

So please, ignore the wingnuts. Everyone else does. Come visit America. It's nice. Lots of the people are nice. Most of the scenery is nice, except for some of the Oregon parts, and the landfills. And Los Angeles.

And hey, if you want to stay, that's all right by me too. The way I see it, you're ALL trespassing illegally on my land as it is, but it's no use my getting all in a bunch about it at this late date.

Love, FirstNations
(genuinely sorry about Colonel Ebey.)

UPDATED UPDATE:
An hour ago we had a pair of paragliders drop into the playing field directly behind our house. Where did they come from? Why, they were dropped from a plane that left Abbotsford Field.
IN CANADA.
And guess who wasn't here to meet them????
Hell, the police didn't even bother to stop. Heard nothing from the Border Patrol. Or the Homeland Security personnel on duty.
NOTHING.
OH MY GOD! That could have been Osama Motherfucking BinLaden! ( and his even more evil twin brother Bananarama VonDamme BinLaden)
I could have spent the rest of my life in a fricken' chador!
I MEAN COME ON NOW IF YOU CAN'T TRUST THE LOCAL REDNECK MILITIA WHO CAN YOU TRUST?????
_____________________________

HERE IT IS....MRS. DANATORS' KILLER GUACAMOLE RECIPE DONE DID!



folks, its FANTASTIC. so much better than the recipe i was using. as i suspected, USING LIME JUICE IS THE KEY. dugong is optional.


my lunch...chips and guac seen here with the all-important seasonings to taste...freshly ground black pepper and Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt. use the best. it's worth it.

You know what? I'm not even going to ask for permission...this recipe needs to be shared with the world. This really is the best guacamole I've ever made.

Mrs. Nator's Killer Guac!

2 ripe avocados (nice and black)
1 lime, juiced
1 jalapeno pepper
1 small onion
½ clove garlic (or whole, depending on your taste)
1 tomato, seeded
Olive oil and salt to taste