Radiohead, day 2, 'Optimistic'

http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=yvtacJD3GmU

OK, tunes o’ the day and WEEK: Radiohead, ‘Optimistic’ here. This is my favorite Radiohead tune, but there are so many good tunes from them. This one came from the Kid A album, which seemed to come and go pretty fast around 99 or 2000. It took me almost forever to find this video clip, so I guess I am the only who likes this tune. Anyway, you listen to Radiohead, and you don’t feel like ‘hey, I am listening to heavy metal, imagine that!’ or ‘my friends will have no respect for me because I played Rush on the blog’ (at least it wasn’t Steely Dan! yuck). With Radiohead you feel hip. Cool. In the know. Not easy for a 40 year old.

CUTE KITTEN IN A BOX

We are taking a brief break from potting to put up a cute picture of a kitten in a box. Our kitten Emily is 12 and a half, not very bright, cross eyed, very fat, but enormously affectionate and kittenish. Her older brother, Sam cat, would disagree with that description.

we interrupt this Radiohead week...

We know Kasabian is an exciting band, and 'LSF' an entirely fantastic tune AND video, maybe my favorite video. OK, our friends at Aol Music have a strange, non-prison break video version of 'LSF' here, but more than that, 'Club Foot', which was on the radio this morning--just plain exciting. The video of 'Club Foot' shows some kind of Prague uprising or Sarajevo thing, and I think these guys see themselves as peace activists of some kind.

and finally...

Well, you may read this starting here, but this is my last post for the early am.
So, last Friday I was playing store at the art garage coopertative I belong to, Spirit and Kitsch, and man, I can really ruin a machine. The cash register is simple enough, I guess, but I don't get out much, and let's just say that I created miles of hand voided tape, there were beeps, there was confusion, and I can't say I was calm. Move to last night: anxiety dreams of trying to ring up sales on the cash register, and there are mad beeps and irate customers....

"Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come...

...they got some crazy little women there, and Ima gonna get me one. " Classic bluesy, early rock and roll tune, and I did get me a Kansas City chick to marry, and everybody knows that Kansas women kiss better than any other women on earth.

Well, why do so many good potters come from KC, or live there now? I am gonna do a Kansas City potter's week, sort of, and we start with the source: Ken Ferguson. One of the big daddies of the twentieth century in pottery, he taught forever at the KC Art Institute, a former mansion and grounds in the middle of the city. One of the best potters of our time, MAKE NOTE of his clever use of bunnies here, making it respectable to mix animal sculptures and thrown pieces, as I do. His animals are solemn and serious, and half the great potters in this country, young and old, were his students.

The next generation

My niece and sister flew into town. Hard to believe, but that little blob of a baby is on a college tour. Heck, I was on my college tour just 25 years ago, where has the time gone? At least in my day college didn't cost 45 thousand bucks a year. Anyway, Leslie is, unlike me, smart, and also hard working, and college admissions offices should give her a whopping big scholarship.

RADIOHEAD WEEK

Ok, Tunes o’ the day, and about time too: Radiohead. Maybe this will be Radiohead week, and they deserve it.
http://music.aol.com/artist/radiohead/41092/main#

The question is, who is the art school, college crowd band for the 90s and oughts? Our generation (X that is) had the Talking Heads, thank gawd. Well, Thom Yorke of Radiohead grew up on The Talking Heads, and so we have him and his band. You have the srtrange, waily voice, the odd beats, and here are three very weird videos. ‘There there’ gets a lot of play on the airwaves here, and are very typical of them, but the other two videos here ‘Go to sleep’ and ‘Street spirit’ are sort of bonuses, but not exactly uplifting. Sort of gloomy and otherworldly, perfectly fitting a Monday morning mood.

beastley

Hard to believe there are

Beastie Boys videos that I havn't seen yet. Tunes o' the evening, if you will!

OK, so, I can make vases. easy as falling off a log. But if If I don't put pigs on them, then at least I can give them wild color schemes.

fat slug

Elephants make a good theme today. Heidi had her birthday, a monster ice cream cake was served, on top of a huge cheezy calzone. My dreams were lost last night in a cloud of fat creaminess.

Was it Lucia yesterday who mentioned parades of pachyderms and then my niece, sister, and dad were over asking about elephant pieces? I have probably shown this picture before, but it is a good teaset with an elephant teapot, missing only the creamer/pitcher you see below, from Friday. You can also see on the left the second type of elephant cup, squared, with the face and ears below and the trunk curving up. I started making those last year when a customer told me the other type, trunk down, was bad luck, good luck comes from elephants shown trunk up. I knew that custom, and I thought the customer was a rude idiot, but it got me thinking, and voila.

So, long before music videos, we had movie clips, like this sweet clip from the Beatles.

flying pigs and ME

So I went to Spirit and Kitsch yesterday, the Art Garage Coop, to play shopkeeper. Unlike Buffalo, it was a gorgeous October day, sunny and golden. I mentioned a couple of days ago I was going to make house signs and then pictured the parts from the roof. My example came out of the kiln yesterday, but could read "506" or "Jones" instead. It could even feature something other than a pig, like a dog or frog, depending on the customer. So, this example is on my display at S & K.

dream videos and dog dreams

I was planning something really raucous this morning, but it is so quiet and peaceful, let's go with Filter for tunes o' the day. The song and video are based on a dream the lead singer had one night. Sadly, in my opinon, the music is great, the video is strange.

Golly, such dreams last night. The last was worth avoiding: me, back in a new high school, our former neighbor-from-hell's menacing German Shepherd popping up in hallways here and there...

petit pachyderm pitchers

Some things make a lot of sense. I once saw a plastic plant watering can and the elephant's trunk was the spout, and it made sense, and is very humerous too. I have made teapots that are elephants, where the spout is the trunk. These guys are fairly simple to make, and good for use as a coffee creamer, or anything like that. Naturally, this means I need to remember to make a pachyderm teaset next week.

that time of year

This picture comes from the Albany newspaper, TWO FEET OF SNOW fell overnight, just to the west of here (where it is currently cold but sunny). Buffalo got hit so bad that there is no power and I cannot even get the Buffalo news online.

Irish coffee redux

There has been talk here of Irish coffee mugs. I made a rather wild one last month, and it was pictured, but there was something a little too ???? about it. Well, I was shopping for Heidi's birthday on Wednesday, and had a petit AHA! moment. I saw a pair of Irish coffee cups, and they were only medium /small in size, and they were wicked cute--the proportions of body and base to whole were perfect. I could see my mistake last month: I had made a full size mug and put it on a base, and the overall thing is just over-huge. So, I came home, threw a much smaller base and body, and as you can see, the finished little guy is perfecto! (he still needs his pig or dog on the handle)I have a bunch of different Irish coffee mugs around here that I have made, and when these boys get out of the kiln, we can do a comparison.

Tunes o' the day: radio 4

Radio 4 shares something with the BBC, which makes googling them almost like searching for a needle in a haystack. Their website is terrific, the music even better, BUT I can imagine Celeste loving the music in the video for 'Enemies Like This' (as I love it) and then rolling her eyes and calling the boys performance 'precious' in that scornful way she has. And I would agree with her. Too many cheerleaders and other distracting pompous artsy touches.

trampoline

So the cats treated me like a happy little trampoline between 3 and 4 am, leading to feverish dreams of college when I was a senior and needed to get a show together to graduate.

Shopaholic

From the Ludgate website we get these excellent pumpkins and flowers. My customers have been spending a lot of money there (thanks!!!!) and keep it up! Just delivered MORE MORE MORE! And....

because my Saturday afternoon craft fair has been canceled due to SNOW predictions, I can up the quantity of stuff I have at Ludgates AND.....

Spirit and Kitsch, who just called to say they are putting me up front, by the door, near the window, but not IN the window, although I currently have stuff in the window, it is wise to avoid Gary and the Window Curse, and keep my stuff by the entry instead.

the good, the bad, and the ugly

OK, I had an email from Jessie asking about the roof. Jessie was correct in noting the rather heavy rains that fell yesterday and today, and our old and porous garage roof. My tar patches held up nicely, thank you very much.

More importantly, let's talk about being an experimental potter. I mentioned earlier I was working on some new things and would post pics later. It is later. You have the before and after here. Nice vases, freshly made on Wednesday because I said 'what if I chopped here, and whacked there?' The guy on the left was pushed too far and fell apart (!!!) and the guy on the right was sliced and diced, and held together fine, but looked UGLY. Final result, scrap pile, where ugly pots and trimmings go to die and live another day as a bowl or something....

Got a VERY HUGELY HUGELY SUCCESSFUL experiment to post tomorrow morning, tune in then folks.

Fat Dog

Jack is a big dog, but not a Fat Dog, like his cousin who posed for the label of Stoudt's Fat Dog Oatmeal Stout. Jack is very athletic and handsome, sporting his favorite blue bandana.

An AHA moment!

Well, my friends and Yahoo have been no help at all here, (although they have tried and tried and tried, but I am an exceptionally slow learner) but maybe the kitten helped me figure this out. You type in Beasties, then highlight it, and hit the links button, paste the http, and AHA!!!
Then you go dance in the snow........