I met an interesting man the other day. Electronics guy. Inventor. But also a singer-songwriter who goes by the mysterious handle Casinato. Although I’m not much of a music person, I was intrigued by the song samples on his website. I bought his album on Bandcamp. The album comes with a .pdf booklet of lyrics and chords. Very helpful. I think what drew me to these songs is the raw, folky quality of Casinato’s voice. Dulcet tones? Not on your life; nor does he aspire to producing anything near dulcet. His voice and style are reminiscent of the early folk-revival…
Month: May 2017
To the person unknown who surprised me by raising my bitcoin total last week … To the long-time supporter, friend, and bounteous information source who just rendered my rainy walk to the post office surprisingly pleasant … To the generous mystery man who has lately sprung several such surprises upon me … And finally to the dear friend (a victim of both perilous health and our present economic “recovery”) who no longer has the means to send financial support, but who volunteered to do a truly wizardly deed for a suffering friend of mine. The two have never met and…
Entering the third — increasingly theoretical — week of the Great Foundation and Screen Porch Project. First week, the Wandering Monk put in two days on the project, much of it spent discussing how to handle the “surprises” we found. After that, it was time to retreat until I could redraw the plans. The Monk went on to other clients and fill-in projects. Second week, the Monk put in two solid work days, after which we were rained out. A cold, driven, nasty rain it was. And is. And will be. The final round is due in tonight, after which…
St. Guinefort the Greyhound. Revisited. This is about 1,000 times better than the version I posted the other day. IMHO, this is another moment of hitting my stride. Only trouble is that “my stride” seems to involve one of the slowest, most blindingly tedious mediums in all artdom: colored pencil. Technically, this is mixed media, but mostly colored pencil, which means mostly hours spent scribbling layer upon layer to build up nuanced color and to fill spaces that a paintbrush could knock out in seconds. Most other artwork I’ve posted has taken two or three hours. This required the better…
It was a rain day on the Great Foundation and Screen Porch Project. No work. Sigh. Boy, the fits and starts of this thing. Supposed to rain tomorrow, too, so we shall see. That at least gave me the chance to get my rusty self back to the art table. I was going to draw a dog-as-pope. … although I thought this hound had more papal majesty. While looking for a good canine pontiff, I — for reasons unknown — found a doggie bantito mixed in with the pope images. Rather liked that guy. I suppose that image is politically…
By now I thought I’d have nice, dramatic pictures for you of the back wall coming down. That was supposed to be first thing on today’s Great Foundation and Screen Porch Project agenda. The wall’s still sitting there boringly in place. Not that we ran into more disasters or anything. On the contrary. The Wandering Monk simply decided it would be a good idea to get the entire west wall up on a permanent new beam before he started teardown. He not only did that but also managed to do some serious, if only partial, house leveling. So it was…