Show at Alexander House

A few days ago, I took some paintings down to Charlottesville for a small group show at Alexander House, a collectively-owned inn and hostel.  Even though it was a quick trip, it was nice to be in Virginia and see mountains and actual stars in the sky.  

Here are some paintings of weird-nest-hive-things-

unhappiness is treason

Here is a Magnetic Fields music video from 1992...a year where one time I intentionally tied my own shoelaces together on the school bus so that I could walk around in my different colored socks while several teachers tried to undo the knots. (It took them a while)

(I was wearing a magenta sock and a purple sock)

Anyway, this video was happening around the same time:

balloons? balloons.

The other day I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at pictures of balloons. Why not? Who doesn't like balloons, right? what, do you have a problem with balloons? Well, look at all the nice old photographs and illustrations I found!  

For a number of years I have been thinking of getting a hot-air-balloon tattoo...I was especially thinking about this the other day.  I think that is what prompted my balloon extravaganza.

Thanks, Internet, for entertaining me with balloon pictures and keeping me from doing whatever it was I was supposed to be doing.

I like this one a lot. I like how it just says "Balloon."

CEMETERY

Yesterday I went on a little bike ride out to Cobbs Creek and wandered around this cemetery for a while.  My favorite thing was this hanging-bears-memorial:

...and I liked the portrait on this one....

I also found this weird gravestone that says "Apprentice Boys L.O.L., No. 34". They probably wouldn't be LOL-ing if they knew they had just been thrown in a mass apprentice-boy-grave!  On a similar note, I found a tombstone that just said "Presbyterian Home for Widows and Single Women," with no further explanation, sitting by itself in a rather large open space, presumably containing the remains of who-knows-how-many anonymous single ladies.  I don't know what that's all about...

Oh and if you look closely you can see Philadelphia above the treetops!

pictures of Pete in the glorious sunshine

Pete is now wearing his light green springtime outfit. He looks 

17 million times better than your dog.

was there even a single cloud in the sky? 

no. no there wasn't.

Illustrations

I just came across these images from children's books, drawn by Shaun Tan. If you go here you can click through one of his stories about this little creature named Eric:

and then this happens and its the best part!

and this is nice too.