I don’t own a cat…
But I know how they think.
Cecil, a fellow Georgian, is the recipient of number six. For those of you who are wondering why I’m creating all these Christmas cards, the details are here.
As for number six, well the old Nutcracker came to mind.
These guys always look a little crazed to me. You know, wide eyed, sort of in a trance or something. I guess cracking too many nuts will do that to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they make it against the law before long since it seems to have such a detrimental effect on these guys.
If they do, a whole new kind of crack house will evolve ya know.
Yep, abandoned houses in decent neighborhoods all over America will rise to become havens for drifting nutcrackers.
Nutcracker houses, that’s what they’ll call ‘em.
They’ll be marching in at all hours, carrying on with their sabres and knocking each other’s hats off. Strewing pecan shells and walnut shells all over the street…not to mention that tin horn crap they play in their cars with the volume cranked up to the max. All because of their crack habit…the insatiable need to crack nuts. Who raised ‘em anyway?!
Maybe it’ll never get to that. Hopefully it’s just a few lost nutcrackers we see once a year. You know, bad childhoods, crackaholic parents and such. Perhaps society can keep them confined to the theater, acting, until they kick their habit. Let’s hope so. More nut cases…that’s all we need!
Lindsay up in Chicago Land is the recipient of number five. Thanks for reading Idle Minutes Lindsay…I hope you have a Merry Christmas!
I’ve been studying the art of our ancestors lately. The earliest art known to man is about 30,000 to 40,000 years old. They are images created on the walls of caves. The oldest of them exist in Europe. America has ancient art too but it’s younger…belonging to early Indians.
The card I’ve created is a memory dump of the many images I’ve seen in books and on the web. In general, most of the cave art is of animals and many of them overlap. The interesting thing to me is why they drew.
Of course we’ll never know for sure. But no historian believes they were for decoration. In fact, art for decoration is a fairly recent concept in the great span of time. Drawing was both communication and a sort of magic for the mind. It is thought that drawing a bison somehow made it real in the minds of our early, primitive ancestors. Sort of like poking needles in voodoo dolls to inflict pain on someone, early man drew animals in hopes that they would appear. Perhaps it gave them a sense of control over them as well.
I don’t do justice to the theories behind early man’s reasons for drawing. There are books on the subject and websites too. It is fascinating stuff. The history of art is quite a story that anyone would enjoy. It makes for a great education about humanity.
A great book is The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich. 6,000,000 copies sold makes it pretty clear that it’s a good resource. I highly recommend it.
For a great book specific to the cave art of our ancestors, try this one. Again, highly recommended.
Zan is the recipient of Postcard number four! Zan lives way up yonder in Canada…waaaaaay up yonder. It may take a while for your postcard to arrive Zan. Hopefully it will get there before Christmas though.
After my rather different approach on Number Three, I thought I’d go with a traditional idea on this one. Who knows what the muse will come up with next?
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Karen up in the great state of Ohio is the recipient of Christmas Postcard Number Three! Thanks for subscribing Karen!
This one bears explaining lest you think I’ve gone off the deep end.
I have a fair number of books on art (imagine that). I found a photo of this happy looking Inuit Dance Mask, c.1880, in one of them. Upon seeing it I thought, “Hang a hat on that happy guy and you’ve got a pretty cool looking Santa”. So, he now graces the front of Karen’s Christmas Postcard.
There’s only one minor problem…
According to the Inuit history of the mask, it represents a man-eating mountain demon. Apparently there is a high level of satiety resulting from eating men. He looks pretty happy by my reckoning. In the actual photo of the mask, there are some rather large blood stains splashed on the mouth and nose area. I figured I might ought to leave those off. I mean a Santa crazed with happiness is a bit much.
By the way…that chunk of wood missing from his left jowl is most likely from another man-eating mountain demon who mistook him for a man. It’s dark most of the day in the winter up in the land of the Inuits. Kinda hard to tell a demon from a man. That’s my archaeological opinion.
Fear not though Karen! There’s a simple solution to assure your safety on Christmas Eve should the Santa scrambling down your chimney be of the man-eating variety…
LOCK THE DANG BEDROOM DOORS!
The postal workers will begin figuring this one out first thing in the morning. Merry Christmas Karen!
Honk! Honk! another winner! Dawn, out in the great State of Oregon, is the second email subscriber since I started the “Free Holiday Cheer” idea. So, she gets Christmas postcard number 2.
It’s going out in Saturday’s mail and I’ve already said my prayers and consulted with an online Shaman in the hopes that the United States Postal Service will carry it from one coast to the other without soiling it up too much.
I’ve never had a problem with USPS coming through for me on delivery. But I have seen some mail that apparently passed through a cotton gin on the way to my mailbox. God bless ‘em though. They do an amazing job all things considered.
Dawn has a sketch blog too and uses it to display some of the very important notes she takes during office meetings.
Her son Matthew even has a blog. He’s only 7 but what a Picasso he is. Check out both of their blogs! Perfect examples of what drawing is all about.
Merry Christmas Dawn and thanks for subscribing!
In an effort to spread some Christmas cheer, I’ve got a little thingy going on here for my new email subscribers. You may need to check it out to fully understand this post.
It so happens that the first new email subscriber is Jim Burnett, the author of a book called “Hey Ranger”. It’s full of funny stories about the, well let’s say unwise, things people do in our National Parks. I found the book in the midst of creating the Illusive Hoary Marmot post. In doing so, I also found Jim’s website and sent him the link. I figured it would give him a chuckle since it was yet another National Park story.
Well, Jim got a chuckle and he decided to subscribe to the blog via email. Honk! Honk! we’ve got a winner! Jim gets a Christmas postcard and here it is…yep, that’s him…sort of.
If you’re a real life funny story addict like me then you’ll like Jim’s book. It got very good reviews at Amazon and he even has a second book coming out in 2007. After 30 years of being a Ranger, he’s probably got enough stories to write more than a few books. You can find the book in your local bookstores or at Amazon. Here’s a link to it at Amazon.
You can pre-order the 2007 book too…
