YSaC, Vol. 982: Obstraction of Justice
2011 May 5
From the “unclear on the concept” department:
Obstract Painting – $70
This is a very nice Painting I purchased a while back it has a thick wooden frame and support cable.
I don’t know if I really want to sell but I am open to bids. Give me a price and if I like you or the price is right you can have it.
“Hello, and welcome to McDonalds.”
“Hi, I’d like a cheeseburger.”
“Actually, I’m not sure I want to sell that.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?”
“Well, how much will you give me for it?
“What? It’s a cheeseburger, the price is right there on the menu!”
“Yes, but I don’t think I like you. Go away.”
Thanks for the listing, Ashley!
With abstract art, the obstacle is often difficult to see or interpret. So it would seem Sparky is right on target.
This is not.an.obstract painting, it’s perfectly stract, clear as day.
We are standing in the living room.
A G.I Joe man is approaching from the dining room, you can tell by his kung-fu grip.
There is a window behind and to the left, (over his right shoulder), you can tell it’s a window because you can see the wisteria outside.
It’s Beesmas time, a white beesmas tree extends into the room from the left.
It’s his aunties’ house, multiple auntie stains on the interior wall have blended into a tornado shape.
An unhung picture sits at the foot of the stairs which ascend to the right.
The burnt orange swatch is a post-purchase skid mark.
::Hmm, I guess that counts as an obstraction::
Nevermind.
Wow. I must be tired. I didn’t even see that typo until I read your comment.
*Skill at closing the sale: check.
*Knowledgeable description of the art (not the frame or the cable, the actual art): check.
*Honed aesthetic sense (between the painting and the pink Christmas tree): check.
*Perfect product placement directly in front of fireplace: check
*match: check
*”Oh look, it’s a burning bush!”: priceless
Vere are ze happy little trees?
YOU MUST PAINT ZE TREES! Unt make zem HAPPY!
I used to LOVE watching the Mighty Painter!
Okay, this has been bugging me on and off for several years now.
Who is the Mighty Painter? I used to watch him with my dad back in the early 80s. He had a half hour thing on PBS where he’d paint a whole nature scene on canvas within that time and it was always beautiful. He was that little german dude, but I always remembered him using the term “happy little trees”, except whenever I search on that term I always get Bob Ross. Now that you mention “mighty” I remember him saying “mighty trees” too, but that search doesn’t come up with anything either. What was his name?
Awww……………….CRAP……………freaky puppy!!! I will not REST until I find out his name!
I can picture him and hear him.
I’ll ask Uncle Google if he can help.
William Alexander
Whew!! I can sleep now…
according to what I could find it was William Alexander.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105×3801994#3802024
His name was William Alexander.
EDIT: And this, kids, is what happens when you don’t refresh before you post. I’m captain redundancy!
Yes I did know that off the top of my head. Yes that’s pretty sad.
That’s him! Yes, now I remember him. Balding German dude, liked to work with a putty knife. I used to love watching that show. He always made painting look like child’s play.
Moving on…
If only we could do something about the price of gas now.
Bill Alexander
*Edit: better late than never… that’s me!
Oh, so it’s just painting on the wall that is child’s play. Painting on a canvas is for adults?
This is why I love YSaC. My family used to think I was weird for always wanting to watch Bill Alexander and Bob Ross. Now I understand… my family is messed up.
You Tube has several videos of him painting, too. Awesomesauce.
And, he has a website…okay, I’m gonna trip down memory lane for a while.
Sweet! I’m gonna take my own trip down memory lane when I get home. I didn’t know he had a website — my first reaction was, “Holy crap, he’s still alive?! But no, it seems just to be his legacy/institute/whatever. But that’s okay, it’s awesome that a lot of his stuff is still around.
Note: This could be on the YSaC trivia quiz at the convention. 8)
Is anyone else more interested in the tree than the painting, or is that just me (it may also be my cold meds talking)?
Oh, I totally focused on the tree and the green balls.
It was the pink tree that inspired my Mobius/Altaire scenario I posted.
That’s because it’s a HYPNO TREE!
How does one decide if they like the anonymous bidder on the other side of the interwebz? Do you think it involves one of those friendship quizzes? Because I suck at those. I always end up with the ‘will sell your kidney in a back alley’ answers.
Also the orange rainbow is clearly a commentary on human oppression.
That reddish splash in the middle is obviously an expression of blender’s inhumanity towards hamster.
The white, blotchy “V” is an extension of the artists inability to cope with the lack of artistic ability.
I thought it was a sign that the aliens are living among us.
Most of CraigsList is a sign that aliens live among us.
This is true. However, I was talking specifically about the “V” aliens. The CraigsList aliens come from the Sparky Way Galaxy and their orbit is way out of whack and they all drive Super Novas.
True, but most of them do so ironically.
Alien OT: A couple weeks ago, I was lying in bed trying to sleep (yay insomnia!). All of a sudden I start hearing these strange beeps. They didn’t sound like a car alarm, or a delivery truck backing up, or someone’s smoke detector — each beep was spaced too far apart for any of these things, and it was also the wrong pitch. I’ve also recently seen a light that goes on and off at very random intervals, and I’m too far from the street for it to be a street lamp. Plus it doesn’t happen every night, as it should if it was a street lamp. Clearly, they’re coming to get me, but it seems they haven’t yet figured out which apartment I’m in.
“Damn it, Glarknarf, can you just stop and ask for directions? We’ve been searching for this person for 3 days.”
“I know exactly where I’m going! I have an instinctual sense of direction that has never failed me!”
“That’s what you said on the way to Earth, and where did we end up? Alpha Centurai Prime. They’re not even that close together! Now stop and ask for directions!”
“Will you stop nagging me, woman? I told you I know where I’m going!”
**grabs Euphonium and flashlight, heads to Massassassachusetts, practices theme from Close Encounters**
Hehehe.
Today’s sinus enema brought to you by:
The Amazing Glarknarf!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY1_HrhwaXU
Watch it! That is an order.
Hehehe, Windy, I love that one. That’s the one on the Ratatouille DVD…which I happen to be watching right now.
And, in a great circular synchronicity, Viz-a-gogo, the annual student exhibition from the Department of Visualization in the College of Architecture will be this weekend. Pixar has four full-ride graduate scholarships and three undergrad; with another 8 or 12 partial scholarships.
I had the privilege of seeing some of the student-developed work that went into Lifted, and met some of the animators.
Welcome, you seem to fit in here very well. Have a coffee slice, and don’t rub the puppy’s tummy.
Obstract painting? Sparky is just being abtuse.
I’m pretty sure Sparky’s Abtuse period have all been sold by now and are in the hands of private collectors.
Of course, I’ve never been a fan of collecting privates myself. I like to view them in the wild.
Nope, not gonna go there.
Oh go on! You know you want to.
Jars and jars full of pecils.
Silly civilians, one does not collect privates, one simply bids them.
See, it’s quite simple really.
I merely suggest to my Chief-of-Staff that a thing wants needs doing.
The CoS, being an E-9, merely flexes an idle digit and/or a few of the less-important eyebrow hairs.
This causes disruptions in the flow of mitaclorian space-time sufficient to set hosts of NCO into motion.
Whereupon corporals and LCpl leap into action, with most excellent shouting.
The Privates then act with the inexorable inevitability of carbon bonding at equivalent electron shell energy states.
I miss the Shouting, sometimes.
But, it’s ok, as senior Vogon-in-charge, I can read poetry to any miscreants.
Sparky is a proud graduate of the South Ish School of Business and Taxidermy. I believe he majored in Asshattery.
I don’t think Sparky should sell it. It goes divinely with that
hideousdelightful pink Christmas tree with the green balls.Obviously, taste knows no bounds in this household!
Maybe Sparky needs the money to get new balls.
Green balls are not very desirable.
Blue balls would be even worse.
Black balls would be the worse. They go on your permanent record.
Meat balls would be perfect!
Mmmm…
I wish I had some big juicy meat balls in my mouth right now!
..and for some reason I’ve got a hankering for a sprig of pink tinsel parsley and a couple of green olives.
I’d love some boiled peanuts right about now.
Get a ball room you two!
TINSEL DUCT TAPE!!!!
…that’s what I need.
There is a Mr. Sharpton for you on Line 4.
“Mobius, did you paint that?”
“What, Altaire?”
“This, abstract painting here on the floor.”
“That?” Mobius laughs heartily, “no, I didn’t paint that, why?”
“It’s so awesome. How much do you want for it?”
“Well, I hadn’t really given it much thought.”
“How about $70?”
“$70, for that??”
“Yes, it’s so…so…existential. It represents all of man’s struggle, his inability to resolve inner conflicts with outer influences…and here, on the side, it looks like he finally realizes he must reach for the stars.”
Mobius squints as he leans over to inspect the “painting” that until now he had not intention of selling.
“Right…well, $70 may be a little low, you know, for something so rare and refined.”
“How much then?”
“I don’t know, I mean I may want to keep it.”
“Mobius! PLEASE?? I simply MUST have this painting for my room!”
“Well, Altaire, since you are my daughter…..I’ll let you have it for $700.”
“Fair enough. Robby?”
Robby, activating at the sound of his name being called, waddles (hey you try being a graceful robot with legs that look like bowling balls stacked together) into the room.
“Yes Miss Altaire?”
“Robby, I need $700 right away.”
“Certainly, Miss Altaire, how would you like that?”
“Oh, I don’t care. $100 bills is fine.”
Robby’s machinery whirs and lights flicker, within seconds a port on his chest opens and Altaire withdraws the crisp, new bills.
“Thank you, Robby!” Altaire hands the money to Mobius.
“You are most welcome. Will there be anything else, miss?”
“Not right now, Robby.”
“I will finish changing out my fluids then.”
Robby walks over to the “painting” and picks it up.
“Robby! Where are you going with my painting?”
“Painting, miss?”
“Yes! I just bought it from Mobius.”
“Miss, this is what I have been using as a drop cloth during my self-maintenance and fluid changeouts.”
Suddenly ill, Altaire looks back at Mobius.
“You…you..knew what that was all along, didn’t you?”
Mobius smiles, “Of course, my dear, but who am I to question what one chooses to call ‘art’? Besides, I owe the Krell money…been losing at the tables lately. It’s not fair, though, they’ve got that damned brain-boosting machine…..”
You should probably see a doctor about that obstraction.
It sort of does look like it needs an enema, or was caused by one…
That looks like my first Paint-By-The-Numbers project! It was supposed to be a puppy in a field of flowers. But I liked to paint outside the lines.
It looks like one of my rags after working on my old, rusty car.
I wonder if that painting is crusty like the rag would get when it dried.
*Looks at what he typed*
I’ll be in The Corner™.
In The Corner™ with the crusty t shirts!
… crusty t-shits.
There, fixed it for you.
Clever girl Lola. How could I forget? I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night.
Isn’t that how the T-shit got crusty in the first place?
I think you should be the one to answer that question.
😉
You should have that dyslexia treated.
I really didn’t want to comment, but since I like you, I decided to let you have it.
I also accept Palpal.
OT..randomness…
Sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday afternoon, the tiny waiting room is packed with people, and mind you this is not the kind of doctor you go see if you’ve got the flu.
Elderly lady sitting not 3 feet from me is a new patient. She’s filling out the forms and loudly asks her companion this:
“It says here something about tuberculosis. Should I mark that I tested positive or not?”
Companion said, “No.”
Me…I skooched a little farther over in my chair and tried to forget what I just heard.
*cough*
*cough*
*moves marginally away from CJ, puts on surgical mask, avoids eye contact*
:puts on respirator, stocks Lounge with vats of Purel:
That’s why I hate doctor’s waiting rooms. Sitting around with a bunch of other people, most of whom are sick, probably with something communicable. In order to create a safe perimeter around me, I’m always half tempted to start coughing and spitting out ketchup, then moaning loudly, “God, I hate dengue fever!”
What’s worse, puppy-dude-with-scary-teeth, is that is NOT what type doctor this is so it was TOTALLY unexpected…and creepy…did I mention creepy?
It is hard to make a gynecology joke without channeling huge amounts of Mr. Winkey.
Mr. Winkey, you’re needed in the snark lounge for a gynecology joke. Mr. Winkey, to the snark lounge for a gynecology joke.
Yeah, that would definitely make it kind of worse somehow — you don’t exactly expect to run into airborne pathogens at the gyno or proctologist or something.
Taco – not that kind of doctor either!
If you think sitting in a waiting room is bad, try working in a hospital.
I’m lucky that I eat so many peppers* or I’d be in really bad shape all the time I think.
*Capsaicin in modest doses has been shown to inhibit the growth of a wide range of bacteria. It is doubtful that it has any significant effect on viral contagions, however.
Now that … is something good to know. I do like some spicy food at times — in moderate amounts, anyway, at least these days. Once was the time I could go scarfing down suicide wings and be cool with it once my mouth stopped melting. Nowadays I have to be particularly mindful not just about the spiciness at the entrance, but the exit, too.
*singin’ “Ring of Fire”*
No kidding. I used to be able to scarf Habeneros by themselves, but in my doting old age I have to tone it down a bit lest I suffer extreme afterburn.
Part of it is also repeat exposure. The more hot stuff you eat, the higher your tolerance at both ends is. But, now that I cook for more people than just me, I tend not to make everything face meltingly hot, which in turn has lowered my ability to handle the hot foods as I used to.
We lucky residents of southern New Mexico, being just 40 miles away from the Chile Capital of the World (anybody who corrects the spelling of chile in this post automatically loses the privilege of visiting Hatch) know the value of asbestos toilet paper.
That’s about how it happened to me. I used to make some spicy chili, load my spaghetti sauce down with cayenne and hot pepper seeds, put pickled hot peppers on just about every sandwich, and bathe every slab of chicken in Frank’s. Since I got married I’ve toned it down a fair bit, mostly because my wife doesn’t like things too spicy, so I guess that’s lowered my tolerance. I still put hot peppers on things, but nothing hotter than the average jar of pickled hot peppers or pepproncini, or a generous slathering of green Tabasco. (Which I absolutely love. It’s milder than red, but it’s got a tang the red is missing.)
But every time I do I worry about the aftermath and whether I’ll be spending any significant portion of my day doing the cowboy walk.
[chili, chile, chilli corey]
Both are actually correct spellings, interestingly, based on where you take the root.
Chili is the spelling that comes from South American where many of the early annum varieties were cultivated.
Chile is the spanish equivalent that became popular in order to distance the peppers from the widely popular Chili Con Carne dish. Due to the popularity of this dish, it was often shortened to Chili, and began causing confusion.
The other spelling, Chilli, is also correct and is used widely in English speaking areas of Europe.
So yea, one fruit, three correct spellings.
[/corey]
At least doctor waiting rooms are always decorated impeccably. Usually some dusty mauve color from the J.R. Dallas Collection with fake white oak end tables covered in magazines touting the latest Christmas recipes—only the date is July 14th, 2010 and you really need a good barbeque chicken recipe. So, you see what recipes you can adjust to fit the pool-party-theme only to find that they’ve been torn out of the (continued) section on page 147. Thank goodness the lights from the baby blue ginger jar lamps are low and they’re only 45 minutes late in calling you for your 10am appointment.
The people waiting always seem to be related to The Wild and Wonderful Whites from West Virginia. The conversations usually involve some casserole they made the night before and the details of what a distant relative has been up to. Of course apparently no one else in the family approves—especially Aunt Effie. There’s always at least one of them that can’t hear properly and, as a result, everyone raises the decibel level so that they can be heard down the hall in Radiology. You start wondering what will happen to Cletus next week when he “goes back to see the judge” when the nurse calls your name from the clipboard.
Fun times once you get moved from the waiting room to the “special waiting room with the butcher paper” and you remember you forgot the Christmas Good Housekeeping magazine that had the half-read article in it that explained in fuzzy detail “How You Can Reduce The Clutter in 2008.” You look over at the magazine holder on the wall beside you and all you see is a copy of Colonoscopy For Dummies® and decide it would be a better bathroom read. So, you play with the tongue depressors and try to remember if you have “J&J roll gauze” at home because this doctor has plenty of it! Your eye is distracted by the glossy color posters on the walls that show you what a “normal” and “not so normal” colon look like and then you suddenly wonder why this room is the temperature of a meat locker when the waiting room would keep grandma sweating in her birthday suit. You justify it in your head by assuming that it’s probably like that to keep down the heat created from the 17 banks of fluorescent lights bouncing off the Santorini-white walls in this 10 x 6 cell you’ve been waiting in for the last 15 minutes.
Just when you think your ordeal is nearly over because you hear someone grab the handle of the door from the hallway, your hopes are dashed as you hear them talking to someone else for another three and a half minutes. Finally, just as you’re trying to decide whether “you really need to pee that bad” or “I should slip out now because it could be another 10 minutes” the doctor finally comes in. Hallelujah and Payback!
“I’ll need another 20 minutes doc for my blood pressure to calm down. You wait here and I’ll be back in two shakes. See you at 11:45.”
*Holds out flask*
Drinkey?
Can I go pee first?
Hold on, let me check with the doctor.
*Wanders off*
Mudsy — I was going to add at the end
“and then they come in and take my blood pressure and wonder why it is sky high.”
Artsy,
but first, they weigh you! Regardless of what I weigh, I’m convinced that has an effect on my BP.
mudsy’s spent a fair amount of time in waiting rooms….
Storytime!!
Taco! Put down that flask, and you BETTER have milk in there, young man!
Okay, class….
As a young-ish woman I had the same doctor for me and the family for years. His name was Dr. Peyton and I adored him.
Dr. P moved his practice to new digs a few miles from the first office he’d set up in.
I went to see him one day, raging fever, sore throat, earache, the whole nine yards.
I lay on the butcher paper, contemplating how bad one could feel and not slip into a coma, when I noticed a rather unobtrusive, small red button in the middle of the otherwise stark white wall.
Hmmmm…. I thought, wonder what that’s for
And because I am me I pushed it.
Oh.MY.GAWWWDDD!!
The room exploded with nurses, doctors, I believe a dentist from down the hall, and I kid you not TWO paramedics with a stretcher…all within a minute of the button-push.
Seems it was one of those holy-shit-I’m-dying-right-effin-now-get-in-here-and-save-me buttons.
I was speechless, but not dying. It was a definite “wannagetaway” moment.
Everyone dispersed.
The next time I went to see the doc not only were there warning signs in the freakin’ waiting room about NOT PUSHING the BUTTON!!! they were in the hallways leading to the examination rooms, in the examination rooms and even in the bathrooms.
End storytime, and Taco, bring me that flask. I need to
drinkinspect it.CJ, is it bad that I can’t stop laughing at your story?
And, the most contagion-ridden, least decontaminated, and almost-never-tested item in medical facilities?
Periodicals.
The number of people who blandly pick up the periodicals is almost as scary as what one can see people do while flipping through the publications. Sneezing, coughing; those are bad enough–no, it’s the lick-the-finger-to-pick-up-the-next-page.
There have been times when I have been tempted to ask if the present reader knows that 90 seconds ago a toddler oozing in almost every possible way was just riming that page you licked with whatever ichors it was being presented to the shaman to alleviate.
But, I’m not what a person would call sanguine about such things. My last two trips to my PCP both culminated in iatrogenic infections which were far worse than the complaint that forced me to the den of the juju-man. So, I’m biased.
But if you sell the painting, Santa will be able to get in, and then he’ll see that tree and Christmas will be ruined!
I have a feeling Christmas was ruined many times in this house.
*pass the egg nog*
“Grossery Store”
Urd didn’t like business trips. It wasn’t the business part he didn’t like — he was good at his job and knew well how to handle things in the various meetings and presentations his line of work required him to attend. What he didn’t like was that these trips weren’t just to various corporate branches at a few locations around the country. Being in outside sales, it meant that his job was to visit places he hadn’t been before, places where his company had no presence so he could try to establish one there. That meant that every trip was a meeting with different people in a different place. Big cities were usually just fine, but his company wanted to reach out to wherever it could, so many of his trips often entailed visits to smaller towns that were out of the way, some of which were, in the kindest verbiage he could muster, non-traditional. He’d yet to visit any place yet where he very nearly expected banjos to begin spontaneously dueling, but there were a few places that could be said to occupy the far edge of some neighboring territory.
His current trip, a minuscule unincorporated town named Sperndilly that appeared nearly to scale on most road maps, had so far managed to maintain its distance from that territory, but there was nevertheless something vaguely but definitely off about this place. It wasn’t any one thing, really, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on anything specific — at least until he stopped by the local grocery store. The sign, proclaiming “Bervin’s Grocery & Bait & Movies & Beer & Lingerie & Things,” was about a foot longer at either end than the store itself. It was made entirely of white paint on wood, and consisted of several lengths of uneven plank nailed together, each one apparently having been tacked on and the whole sign re-centered every time Bervin added to the litany, feeling as he must have that beer, movies, bait and crotchless panties were too important to be obscured under the rubric of “things.”
That was just old country twang, though, unusual but not exceptional. Urd walked in through the double wooden doors, setting off a clatter of bells that hung above to notify the proprietor that someone had entered. Apart from the disparate assortment of completely unrelated wares, the layout wasn’t all that unfamiliar. Immediately to Urd’s left upon entering was the checkout counter; to his right, a small kiosk where the bait was kept; and occupying most of the center were chest-high shelves stocked with groceries. Refrigerators and freezers lined the back and left side. To his right, toward the rear, a large man with a vicious beard and explosive hair stood before a mirror in the small lingerie section modeling a hot pink bra with holes where the nipples went, which made an odd and unsettling kind of the sense in the moment it took Urd’s brain to process what it was seeing, as the denim overalls the man was wearing also had the nipples cut out.
Urd attempted to put the man’s furry moobs out of mind and he focused on browsing the store shelves; he had come there specifically to pick up a few things he had run out of on the trip — toothpaste, shaving cream and lip balm. Some beer would hit the spot, too, maybe help calm his nerves being in this nonspecifically strange town. Toothpaste they had, as with shaving cream, but he couldn’t for the life of him find any lip balm. That wasn’t so important though, so he headed to the back to browse the beer. The selection was scant and clearly geared toward local tastes: Bub, Spoors, and Naturalice covered all the bases. He wasn’t sure if there was supposed to be a space in the latter’s name, nor where it was intended to go. He hadn’t heard of any of them before, but he supposed Bub sounded the least offensive. He had no idea how much it cost, though, as there was no price on it, nor on the shelf. In fact, he hadn’t seen any price tags anywhere. He supposed it didn’t matter; aside from the fact that he wasn’t buying much to begin with, he was just going to expense everything anyway.
Urd grabbed the beer, headed to the checkout and placed his items on the counter. The proprietor — Bervin, he presumed — didn’t so much have a face as a thicket with eyes that peered at him through holes in the scrag. As Urd stood expectantly in awkward silence, Bervin seemed to be sizing him up.
“Ain’t never seen you ’round here afore,” Bervin drawled at length, his mouth little more than a part in the bramble.
“I’m just here for a couple of days on business,” Urd explained. He wasn’t sure why it mattered, but he figured Bervin was just trying to make genial conversation, such as it was.
“Uh-huh,” Bervin replied before lapsing into another judgmental silence.
“So,” Urd said in an attempt to break the uncomfortable tension that was building. “How much do I owe you?”
Bervin didn’t even look at the items before him. “Can’t say as I know. Like I said, I ain’t never seen you ’round here afore.”
“You … don’t know how much these items cost?” Urd asked, trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice in the interest of civility.
“Oh, I know how much they cost,” Bervin responded. “Just don’t know how much I’m chargin’ you, seein’ as how I don’t know you ‘n all.”
“I don’t understand,” Urd said, confused. “I’m just here to pick up these few things, why would it matter if you know me or not?”
“Look,” Bervin explained. “I don’t know how you hoity-toity city folk do things wherever it is you’re from, but we got our own ways here. I charge you whatever I think you should pay. If I like you, you get a deal. If I don’t like you, I charge extra, on account o’ pain ‘n sufferin’ o’ havin’ t’ deal with unsavory types.”
“I .. see,” said Urd, who didn’t really. “And?”
Bervin processed that for a moment. “And what?”
“And … do you like me?”
“Nope.”
Urd raised an eyebrow. “But you don’t even know me. How can you say you don’t like me?”
“Don’t need to. You’re city folk. I don’t like city folk.”
The way Bervin inflected city folk had pretty much suggested that already.
“Okay. So, then, how much for these for someone you don’t like?”
Bervin finally looked at the three items on his counter. He worked his mouth as though trying to get a bit of food loose from between his teeth. “A hunnert dollars.”
“A hundred dollars?” Urd couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice this time. “For toothpaste, shaving cream and a beer? A hundred dollars? Really?”
“I said I don’t like you.”
“And what about him?” Urd indicated the rotund man in the lingerie section, who was now holding a white flower-print nightie up to his chest, pivoting this way and that so he could see himself in it at all angles. “You going to charge him two hundred? Three?”
“Da? Look, da!” the big man said, suddenly facing the counter with the nightie stretched across his torso.
Bervin scowled at him. “That’s my son.”
Urd closed his eyes and inwardly groaned. His real problem was that this was the only grocer in town. The next nearest place was more than an hour away. It had already been a long day for him, it was late, and there was no way he was going to make the next supermarket before it closed. Frustrated and angry, Urd dug his wallet out of his pocket. “Fine. A hundred dollars.”
“Two,” Bervin said.
“What?”
“Two hunnert.”
“But you just said one hundred!”
“I really don’t like you, now. You insulted my boy. Two hunnert.”
“Da, look!” Bervin’s son called, bouncing on his toes now.
Urd gritted his teeth hard enough that he thought he might shatter them. He had no idea how he was going to explain this on his expense report. He’d just have to hope they wouldn’t scrutinize it too closely. Wordlessly, he leafed through the bills in his wallet and pulled out two hundred dollars, which was almost every penny he had on him in cash, and handed it to Bervin.
The proprietor took the money, punched some keys on his ancient cash register and stuffed the money inside. “You wanna bag?”
“Please,” Urd replied through his still-clenched teeth.”
“Ten bucks.”
“Forget the bag.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Daaa!” His son was getting impatient now.
Urd ignored him and headed out the door to the same jangle of bells that now sounded like the ring of the old cash register to him.
“Y’all have a great day now, y’hear?” Bervin called after him.
The freaky-genius is baaaaaaaaack! The imagery was…well, disgusting….well done!
“nonspecifically strange” is a phrase that I could use to tag many things, all the time, IRL, and online … thank you for that, Creepy Puppy (but not for the mental images involving lingerie).
I think that phrase has been used to describe me a few times.
Or, in the words of TacoMother, “Taco, you’re so weird sometimes.”
Thanks, Mom.
Now, if anyone needs me I’ll be in my squirrel costume.
Nonspecifically strange is my middle name! Of the North Stumperton Nonspecifically Stranges.
Ah, finally a quality example of the newest school of art – water stain. There are several methods of accomplishing a “water stain” school painting. The most common is by taking several pipes, each of a different metal and well-rusted as well as assorted widths and lengths, and hanging them over a canvas that is propped at an angle on the floor. The artist then plugs the bottom end of each pipe almost completely and fills each pipe with the liquid of his or her choice. The liquid slowly leaks out of the bottom of the hole and leaves mineral stains on the canvas. The outcome is unpredictable because different amounts of rust leave different amounts of mineral and different colors are achieved by different liquid types.
A less-common method is called NPD, for newspaper print dye. Some artists wad up pages from the newspaper on their canvas and then hose down the ad so the ink runs onto the canvas. Newcomers to this art form really enjoy themselves because they get to read the Sunday funnies, but their attempts are laughed at by those in-the-know because the pattern left by the Sunday funnies is too recognizable and formatted. The posers in this sub-genre use only the newspaper ad section because of the bright colors. Those a little more trained do include a few strips of ad paper, but that’s just for the striking dissonance of bright dye running over the gray of the newsprint that occasionally gets stuck to the canvas. Those on the farthest fringe of this sub-genre actually piss on the newsprint. Depending on how much and what they’ve had to drink, the urine stains and the dye stains both complement each other and clash in the most jarring way imaginable. These rare pieces of art are the most valuable, but buyers are ashamed to hang them on display because they smell like – well, like wino piss.
Damn, Yancey, are you telling me that all of that crap in the corner of subway cars is art?!?!? If so, the MTA should sell it and stop raising our fares in return for the little they give us, which includes minimal service, nonexistent customer service, stations covered in filth in layers excavatable by decade, express trains that are anything but, uptown-bound 6 trains (in particular) that smell like giant urinals on wheels, cancellations for “work” on lines where there are not alternate trains …
Sorry, didn’t mean to rant. I had a difficult commute this morning.
*huddles with flask*
It’s only art if somebody puts it in a nice wooden frame and hangs it in a gallery. So if you’re willing to touch it, you *might just have a gold mine in the subway stations.
*But probably not.
… I think I’ll stay poor, thanks! 8)
[OT]
The search terms to find my blog keep getting weirder. Now someone from Indonesia found my blog by searching for “magic heels trample stomach”
They must have the strangest infomercials over there.
[/OT]
Seriously….I write, freelance, for a site that gets our article titles from web searches…and there are some very, very, very weird people looking for some very, very, very weird shit out there.
google.com
Rumpybottomed Walrus Emasculator.
*Click*
Huh… what is this “Two Bite Stories” all about…
EDIT: There are, as yet, no search results for that.
Holy shit…I now know what’s going to show up at the top of my queue.
Thanks, TM..just, thanks.
I can blitzkrieg google with all kinds of weirdness if you’d like…
Don’t judge me!
On a totally unrelated note: Does anyone know how to add an invisible, searchable tag to a wordpress blog?
You can use the %lt;meta%gt;%lt;/meta%gt; tags, but I don’t know if Google indexes those. I know they stopped a long time ago because people were artificially inflating their search rankings with meta spam. Their algorithms are undoubtedly much better now so they might be allowing meta tags in again if their current search algorithms don’t allow the tags to influence ranking.
Alternately you can use a 1-point font in the same colour as the background it’s being printed on and just print the tags there. Ideally though you probably want to look into some sort of SEO plugin. (I don’t know if you can do that with wordpress.com though; you may need your own hosting with a custom WordPress installation.)
Maybe I’ll just use it as a title of one of my entries. It’d fit in with my theme pretty well anyway.
Why does it have to be invisible? I’ve got a tag on one post for “corpse-finger” and I’ve actually had hits on it.
I have absolutely no doubt about that. But right now the traffic on my site is light enough (like, really light) that I don’t get many search hits yet. (Well, I can’t expect much having never advertised it anywhere but here) So something like this sticks out all the more. But that particular combination of words … well, it just creates a really, really weird mental image. Like, weirder than the stuff I normally write about. David Lynch weird.
Obstract comment.
Asdi busdfe usdrew nsdfeiet chhoerw hwert orewt fawer rweort anwoernyt nweort dweint omrtyni4y mwhetptjry sreiy hlweitpy itwoeto tliwertlt
If I like you or if the price is right, you can reply to it.
8iol3e t57y0plj8i hntg 3ws9i6t5yh jmiu7tg3ws!
Bavec, you gonna let him talk to you like that?!
Back to the subject at hand…..
I think this picture should be added to the YSaC Rorschach test.
“This is a very nice Painting”
No. No, it isn’t.
[ot]I’ve been trying to sell a lawn mower on craigslist the past few days and it’s like people don’t even bother to READ the friggin’ ad.
I keep getting questions that I answered in the ad. Y U NO READ MY AD?!
There is a lesson I learned many, many years ago when I set up my first BBS in the mid-late 80s. You remember that Far Side cartoon on what you say vs. what dogs hear? Yeah, for the most part, people see a page of text and read “blah blah blah GINGER, blah blah blah blah blah GINGER.”
So it goes.
Next person who asks “Have you ever had any problems with it” and/or “why are you selling it.” I’m just gonna send them a link to my ad with “Here, this should answer your questions.”
Also: For those of you who are now scouring Milwaukee Craigslist for a TypoMagical ad to submit to YSaC. I did two drafts and spellchecked the ad, so it’s not worth the effort of finding.
Well.. poop.
Eh, Lawn Mower Taco didn’t turn up anything anyway.
I’m afraid to Google that, by the way.
That sounds like a challenge!
:switches tabs:
:twenty minutes later:
Hmmm…I found a “self propelled multching mower”, a Craftsman that is “definetly worth” the price, and someone looking for a magneto coil because they “Don,t want to buy new, mowers not worth it.”
I give up. This is harder than I thought.
You should have done that to begin with. I would have. Or rather, I would have copy pasta-ed the ad in my email and bolded the pertinent part.
And then tell them “btw, you know what? I don’t think I like you. You don’t get the mower”.
I just emailed the seller
“You don’t happen to have an abstract painting instead, do you? I prefer paintings with real adjectives describing them.”
You win the internet.
I still can’t get over the weirdness of that pink tree-thing.
Who thought that was worth making? What were they on? Can I have some if I have to keep looking at it?
Hammy, punchity punch punch!
Good night, folks!
I get it!! I get it! An “obstract” painting is an obtuse + abstract painting. It’s an alternate view of the world that ain’t real bright.