Childhood favorite Bellerophon Books. As a child I had a fantastic time with the Greg Irons-illustrated coloring book of the American revolution (no pic? a crime!) and the sensitive redrawings of Hokusai ukio-ye, and the many books featuring enlarged and simplified drawings originating with turn-of-the-century ethnographic texts were hypnotically beautiful to me.

Hm, the publisher’s disregard of the Irons book is utterly insane. the book is filled with scrupulously drawn images of key moments in the history of the colonial rebellion, and Irons (an influential underground cartoonist and tatto artist) employed fantastically rigorous putti banners (my coinage) to convey dialog and caption within the scenes. What is so fantastic about this, in my mind, that that these banners, occasionally lofted by swallws, are the old-school tattoist’s standard for including dedications and such like in tattoos, and are clearly derived from popular media dating to the late 1700s, the era of both the Revolution and Hogarth.

In this children’s book, Irons was drawing a line between tattooists of the twentieth century, America’s founding fathers, and most particularly the styles and modes of popular media at the hour of our nation’s birth. It is a national treasure.

It is a good day to drink
.

This picture was snapped, so it seems, on or around July 8th of this year in the San Juans. Amazing.

Spence republishes Captain Beefheart’s Ten Commandments for Guitarists. May I spend more time following these than I have in the past, as they are right-fucking-on.

(5) IF YOU’RE GUILTY OF THINKING, YOU’RE OUT

If your brain is part of the process, you’re missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.

Benjamin.

The Chicken Kid Dot Com.

Mac mini R.I.P.? Jim, don’t open that box. Eric suggests a Mac Nano or Shuffle would stanch his tears.

A quick google for “napoleon pascoe” reveals that University of Iowa prof Judith Pascoe’s handwringer on the inappropriateness of collecting dead emperors’ dehydrated naughty bits – or anyone’s really, the party pooper – was, in fact, not originally titled Give Napoleon’s Penis a Proper Burial, as it is headlined in today’s Post-Intelligencer.

I must point out that his Highness would most certainly agree, although he would prefer that such action had taken place more or less two centuries ago, and preferably in the arms of a fetching young partner rather than the clammy embrace of Gaia.

The history of the History Of Port Orchard Yacht Club includes a shot of a boat much like the Concordia the League passed whilst abaft, aport, afloat, or whatever it was. Here is another shot of a boat of the same name and similar design dating to the first half of the twentieth century.

On careful review of the pair of pics, employing my art-historian’s eyes, my tentative conclusion is that aye, the Concordia we passed is a) a survivor of the Moskito Fleet b) formerly the property of a burgeoning social club based in Port Orchard (!) and c) depicted in all three photos herein linked. $1k for a boat! My word!

Viv and I spent a happy hour on Sunday visting with old homey Scott Colburn and his lovely wife Jaye in their Ballard recording studio. Scott’s talking about getting back into making movies, and laid a copy of his latest side project, Wizard Prison on me. It seems the imprisoned wizards may attempt a jailbreak at a Lake Union arts facility within the month. Word to the wise, you see.