Anubis is my Homedog

Here are some sketches I did yesterday after a part of one of Sophie Ryder's sculptures. He's the dog riding on the back of the horse in Conversation, see? I know he looks a bit bunny-like, but all of Ryder's stuff looks a bit bunny-like! Plus I suspect I didn't get him quite right. But it was calming sketching him.

Lady-Hare

Went to the wonderful Yorkshire Sculpture Park over the weekend, which is one of the best things to do on a summer's day if you happen to be in the right neck of the woods. I took some photos of a range of sculptures they have there at the moment by Sophie Ryder. She does these cool animal-human hybrids which I personally find very pleasing. The one below is a new gigantic fibreglass Lady-Hare. You can see from the picture below that she's actually split in half and partially hollow.

Pink Lady-Hare Dancing with Big Brown Dog, 2000, Bronze

Conversation, 2002, Bronze

What do you reckon? I think they've got a nice Angela Carter/Paula Rego sexy fairytale vibe about them...

A-Boo

My American ladyfriend flew back across the ocean today, and I am miserable. I won't see her again for months. She is 7000 miles away. So today I've been hibernating, woozy from waking up at 3:45am and feeling thoroughly sorry for myself.

Naturally this is an occasion when I need some comfort reading. Usually I would go for some Terry Pratchett, preferably Discworld and one of the ones about the Night Watch. I love reading about some adventure with Vimes and the gang running around Ankh Morpork. Makes me feel much better, absorbing like proper comfort reading should be. Unfortunately they didn't have any Terry Pratchett in the WHSmiths as Manchester Airport, so I had to choose elsewhere. Out of their limited selection I went for Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marion Keyes. I know my friend Nicky likes Marion Keyes, and I even borrowed one of hers once and remembered it to be pretty engaging for, and I hate to use this term, chick-lit. But no! Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married was a bad choice! Here's what I emailed to the girlfriend about it:

"It's not the chick-lit escapism I was hoping it would be. I was hoping for glamorous women living in New York and having well-paid non-specific media jobs, falling for a charming cad with whom they have steamy sex scenes, before parting from him and marrying their perfect guy. The Marion Keyes, despite having flowers on the cover and being a nice shade of pastel pinky-purple, is actually rather grim. The heroine is depressed, has low self-esteem, works in a crap office job, has annoying and selfish friends, goes out and gets drunk every weekend, and is messed around by all the disappointing men in her life. I did not ask for this degree of social realism! Except it is also sloppily written and painfully predictable, and of course must end in a marriage. I'll concede there are a few mildly funny bits. Also now I feel bound to read it til the end."

Argh. I'll pre-buy my Pratchett next time, preferably second-hand. Here are a few more of my comfort reads:

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
The Alanna books, by Tamora Pierce
Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

What do you guys read when you are in need of the literary equivalent of a big fuzzy hug?

12 Points

The culturally astute amongst you will know that last night was the Eurovision Song Contest. This is one of the most fascinating, glittering, wondrous occasions of the year, and my housies and I gathered to watch it with pizza and a goodly amount of drinks. To help the evening along we had some EUROVISION DRINKING RULES, which I will include here for your future Eurovision edification. Some I got from the internet, some I made up, some seemed like they needed to be included as we went along.


HOSTS

The hosts sing
The hosts speak in rhyme
The hosts change their outfits
The hosts engage in painful comedy that flops completely

PERFORMANCES

Performer clenches fist with eyes closed
Performer falls to floor with emotion
Native instruments/costumes/dance
Politics/religion
Rap
Magic
Outfits ripped away
Prominent nipples
The song goes up in the last refrain
SINGING OFF KEY
An elderly person is on stage
Excessive feathers on outfit
Performer is wearing a jaunty hat/moustache
Fireworks/ribbons/candles/masks
PUPPETS – drain glass!

VOTING

Local correspondent seems drunk or disorientated
Drink for every England nil point
BLOC VOTING
People like Ireland
Interrupting
Computer visualization is a bit weird
You find that the voting is boring you

GENERAL

Short subtitle, lots of words being said/sung
Graham is bitchy about an outfit
GAY.
Colour scheme that makes your eyes bleed
Hideous open shirt/visible chest
Wink at camera
Team is clearly already drunk in the Green Room

OVERALL RULE: Drink if you would tap that.


We were a bit disappointed that Norway won, since the song was very forgettable and they seemed mostly to have won because the lead singer was cute in a teenage Pop Idol kind of way. Our pick was Germany, for the shiny silver tight pants of the lead singer, the surprising appearance of Dita Von Teese, and the general extreme gayness. Portugal was sweetly catchy, Estonia were foxy, Moldova were hyperactively awesome. Britain had a pretty goddamned awful song by Andrew Lloyd Webber (the Webber-toad was even on stage), and yet we came fifth, our best result in years! Go figure.

By the way, if you were watching, correlate the events of the night with these drinking rules and you will be able to have some idea of how drunk we got. (P.S. The answer is VERY.)

Giddy Up!

Cheese

Do you ever see those places that do professional family photos, and everyone just looks ridiculous and uncomfortable and unattractive? And sometimes they are wearing matching outfits, or in an 'amusing' situation? Yeah, I'm so glad my family never thought that was a good idea for us. Unfortunately these guys did:

These guys too:

Want more delicious awkwardness? Of course you do. It is here, at Awkward Family Photos. The site pretty much does what it says on the tin.

Fascinating Power Lesbian

EEEE, I love it when celebrities are on Funny or Die. Especially when it involves The Gay. Here is that chap from Queer Eye For the Straight Guy talking about how difficult it is as a fabulous queer talking to those boring straights. (No offence, real-life straighties.)

Straight Talk w/Carson Kressley from Carson_Kressley

Outbox

Here are some quick postcards I made using paint, eraser stamps and the cardboard things that Amazon send cds to you in. They're not amazing, but they are hopefully cheerful.




P.S. I really miss having access to a scanner. My crap camera just doesn't cut it for making images of arts etc.

Ooh New Readables

Check out my haul from the London Zine Symposium 2009!

What you're looking at here is:

Zine Fest Zine
Claptrap 3
Sweet Valley 69 #3
Hey Monkey Riot, Spring
Brainscan Zine 23 1/2
Girl Photographer One
Ricochet Ricochet #8
You Don't Get There From Here #10
Cute But Sad comic
Stolen Sharpie Revolution II: A DIY Resource For Zines and Zine Culture

Plus a couple of badges, postcards, and a kitsch little photo from this photographer guy which I will put in a clipframe and put on my wall, yes I will.

I gave some copies of Enthusiasm away to some of the people I got zines from (oh the joys of zine exchange!), but even more exciting, it was on sale there! Only a couple of distros so far, but it's a good start.

All in all, the best day ever was had by all. Sunday trains took ages to get to London, but this enabled me to get over my hangover from the truly epic party the night before. Also had a pootle around Brick Lane and Spitalfields market(s), where there were swarms of ice-cool youths. Perfection.