Beginnings and endings are arbitrary. They frame the story that the narrator wants to tell.
This is from The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by Matthew Gabrielle and David Lollard. It seems a little obvious, maybe even anodyne, but it’s such a good phrasing of the idea that I want to burn it into my memory.
Today’s prompt was “path”.
Today’s prompt was “spiders”.
Literal and much faster today. This is a peacock spider from Australia called the Sparklemuffin. (More info at laughingsquid.com.)
The foot and stool belong to Prochorus, the amanuensis of St John the Theologian who wrote the Book of Revelation, about whom more later.
My relationship with ink is murky. I love the work of really good inkers but I’m rarely satisfied with my own work.
But it’s Inktober and I could use some prompts so I decided to try something for today.
The first prompt was “dream”. I started out doing something very planned and very geometric, but … ink and I got into our usual back and forth.
So I fell back on the old art school trick of working loose on scrap cardboard and I think it came out okay. It’s actually two pieces that ended up working well together.
India ink and a couple of pens.
More about Inktober: https://inktober.com/
When I lived in Anchorage, there was a checker at grocery store near my house who was trying to do the Mandated Thank The Customer By Name by reading my name from the receipt. Probably not having run into a lot of Scottish surnames in the country of her birth, she looked briefly consternated then quickly smiled at me and said “Thank you, Mister David!” She called me that until I moved away in 2009. It’s become more common, and I’m fine with it. It’s a weird looking name. Easy enough to figure out if you have time, but a weird sequence of letters, especially if English isn’t your first language.
Today I learned that there is a paint color called “Mister David” and I quite like it.
Sometimes I’ll learn something that seems completely out of left field but also seems like something that I should absolutely have known about at the time and trying to absorb the information feels like looking into an alternate universe. Did I know about this and forget? Did it just slip by me?
Today that thing is threefold:
1. Willie Nelson and Richard Pryor performed “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain” together on TV
2. Richard Pryor played saxophone
3. Richard Pryor had a children’s show
