Kim Kardashian is pregnant. Again. They (Kim and her husband, Kanye West, known in entertainment circles as "Kimye") have somehow, inexplicably decided that what the world needs now is NOT love, sweet love, but more of their conjoined DNA. And more of the freak show that is "Keeping Up With The Kardashians".
I groan.
The pain.
The pain.
Speaking of freak shows...
TLC's "19 Kids and Counting" has been hastily pulled from the air since revelations broke of Josh Duggar's molestation of 5 underage girls, some of whom were his sisters. I shan't delve into the details here, dear friends. Much too ghastly these goings on in what is essentially a train wreck of a family that got a TV reality show because a shameless network decided it couldn't make money by being "The Learning Channel".
These are the same folks who gave us "Here Comes Honey Boo-boo" before it unexpectedly went off the air after the mother took up with a convicted sex offender. I'm not really certain what the premise of the show was, other than to showcase an overweight child beauty queen and her family of human Kiboko. But I'm pretty sure that no one cares a damn about that now.
I take some comfort in the idea that the big top that is "reality programming" will one day come down, and the circus will finally leave. Unfortunately it may take more train wreckage before that happens.
Stay off the tracks.
More Later
KCD
Visit www.theworkofart.net
P.S. The word "kiboko" is Swahili for "river horse". It refers to the hippopotamus.
For "Star Trek" fans (once and perhaps still called "Trekkers"), this will be a hoot. Somewhere in China near the sea (I don't think we could call it a lake), there is a building that upon first glance looks like a pretty cool, modern piece of architecture. But when you pull away and get aerial footage of it (as apparently the folks at Yahoo! News did from drones), the building looks for all the world like the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701. Turns out, that's by design.
This building is the headquarters of a Chinese gaming and internet company called Net Dragon. According to Yahoo! Movies editor Kevin Polowy, the CEO of Net Dragon, Liu DiJian is a mad Trek fan (they say "mad" here in MA to denote orders of magnitude, unlike the common usage which just means...insane; or angry), and was willing to part with $160 MILLION (that's six zeroes after the 160) to build their new futuristic space based on the fictional starship. He also had to cut a deal with Paramount Pictures and CBS which co-own the licensing rights to all the "Star Trek" properties. Apparently no price was too small, and the result is what we have here.
As a fan, I tend to think the design borrows from nearly all the versions of the Enterprise, but more closely calls to mind the Enterprise "E" (below) from "First Contact", "Insurrection", and "Nemesis". At least the saucer section does. The nacelles are more reminiscent of the Enterprise "D"(also below), the galaxy class ship from "ST:TNG" (that's "Star Trek: The Next Generation" for the non-Trekked), which was destroyed and the crew of which migrated to the "E".
All right. I've geeked out enough here. Artistically and architecturally, this is an amazing piece of design, engineering, and construction. I now turn you over to the visuals and the ambient soundtrack.
In order: USS Enterprise NCC 1701 E, USS Enterprise NCC 1701 D, Net Dragon HQ in China.
So there you are. Make it so.
Turning now to the local scene here in Worcester, MA, the Worcester Art Museum has been in the midst of an integration of exhibits of armory and weapons from the now-closed Higgins Armory, which for a long time had been the place to go for exhibits of that type. In fact, it had been the only museum of its kind dedicated to arms and armor for over 70 years. Sadly for the locals here, due to lack of funding, the Armory closed in 2013, and its 2,000 pieces were transferred to a newly built wing of the WAM which opened this year. The Armory building itself is a piece of history worth studying, but for our purposes, we'll hold that aside for now.
Beginning April 18th, the WAM opened an exhibit of pieces of Japanese arms, armor and weapons called "Samurai!" The pieces come from the old Higgins Armory collection, and the museum uses these as a jumping off point for showcasing modern interpretations of this ancient tradition in paintings, drawings, paper sculpture, and a variety of other media from Japanese and American artists. That exhibit runs through September 6th.
Last week, from May 5th through May 9th, artists Andrew Hem, Mari Inukai, and Audrey Kawasaki painted a gigantic Samurai themed mural in the Lancaster Lobby of the museum. Definitely worth seeing! And as if to take the Samurai legend and tradition further, May 17th is Star Wars Day. The event runs from 11am-5pm, and is free with Museum admission. Featured will be Jedi Knights and Imperial Stormtroopers as well as the Rebel Legion and 501st. Should be a fun time. The weather looks great for Sunday. If you're in town, come check it out. For those of you in Northern Worcester County, it's not a long ride, 40 minutes to an hour. Definitely worth the trip. See you there.
Apparently the self-imposed artistic exile hasn't taught former President George W. Bush anything.
When last we heard from the 43rd occupant of the Oval Office, he'd taken up painting in his retirement. Nothing fancy. Certainly nothing revelatory (although not for want of trying to find something, ANYTHING that might explain the psyche of the man that got us into some of the worst shape this country has ever been in), mostly clumsy self-portraits of his back in the shower or his feet in the tub. And dogs. Lots of dogs. I noted here that this was an odd direction to go in, but that it could prove an opening to enlightenment for someone with such a striking lack of awareness. My optimism, alas, was misguided at best.
So it was that Bush emerged from his hideaway, broke his silence and proceeded to criticize the current administration for its handling of the fallout of the war he instigated back in 2002, a war lots of people thought was unnecessary and ill-founded. He made his remarks at a gathering of donors this past Saturday. Some speculate that with his brother Jeb a potential 2016 Presidential candidate, that he would speak up at some point.
Well, now he has.
Beyond the obvious embellishments of recent history, what this shows is that Bush needs more time in the studio. A LOT MORE. He might actually be served by a course or two in art history, particularly the way that art has been used to question authority, call attention to injustice, or, as we do here with our MALADJUSTED series of graphics, point out the absurd, the plainly ridiculous, and the laughably insane that poses as reason. Without getting into it too much, insanity that poses as reason is a lot of what passes for political discourse and debate these days. What FOX News hath wrought is a veritable gold mine for artists and creatives who want to turn their pencils, paintbrushes, WACOM tablets, and various tools to addressing the collective eye-roll and groaning that is cultural expression in these United States, circa 2015.
Meanwhile, our former "War President", will go back to Dallas and paint DOGS.
Lots of dogs.
Tails wagging.
Tongues hanging out while gasping air in a pant before examining their balls.
And marking their territory.
Coming to a Garden Club art auction near you.
P.S. I didn't know this, but those folks over at the Garden Club are a bunch of environmental radicals! I mean, they are down with clean air and water, and preservation of natural open spaces and native plants. The very idea. Check it out here.
Actually, it's less an ode and more of a plea for Winter to get on with it already! I mean, Spring officially began on March 20th at somewhere around 7PM Eastern Time (?) or thereabouts. We are three weeks into spring and the temperature outside here in Worcester, MA is (let me check): 31 degrees F and we have rain mixed with some frozen concoction that only the Winter Goddess could dream up just for us here in New England.
The weather people (the ones who study and forecast it, not the Elementals who make it) call it a "wintry mix". SERIOUSLY?? In April? As my mother would say, "What kind of $#!+ is this?"
Anyway, this is my way of protesting what Mother Nature hath wrought. As I finish it, I'll post it up here. I am sure that all my people up here along the slowly thawing Northeast Corridor will be able to relate. Hard as it may be to accept, Spring is here, folks.
Now if someone could just tell me where the hell she's hiding.
Well, if you believe the myth, Hell is precisely where she's hiding, waiting...
So I was thinking about the normal hours at a meth lab. You know. Most businesses have their standard hours of operation and meth labs are businesses at the end of the day. If you doubt that, check out the IRS code. Did you know that money from dealing drugs is taxed as ordinary income? Or at least it's supposed to be. The War on Drugs has made it hard for people in that, ahem, line of work be forthcoming with their income statements. I mean, can you imagine what thatW-2 would look like? Well friends, now you don't have to. I've done it for you and while I'm not going to the trouble of trying to actually design a W-2 from a meth lab, I did just wonder what happens to the poor bastard who needs his fix on Sunday (preferably for the week) and he finds the place closed.
Or...do meth heads even think in those terms?
What if meth labs don't think in terms of "normal business hours"?
If we perhaps ended the War on Drugs, would meth labs become respectable places of business? Or would that constitute an unintended consequence?
