tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16869910598207677732024-03-18T23:11:55.304-07:00palblogAll artwork, photos and text © 2010 Peter Laird, unless otherwise noted.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger648125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-44988435291799256512023-11-19T22:23:00.000-08:002023-11-19T22:36:31.402-08:00TMNT new street sign and manhole cover, reveal in Dover, NH<p>A few days ago,I found this cool video on YouTube -- I thinnk it's a little over half an hour long and contains much of the official speeches at the reveal of the TMNT commemorative sign and manhole cover. </P
<p></p>-- PL
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rbq7bXn3A7w?si=moHU3x_x_N3g0txe" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>P/Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-13299963864095381132023-11-09T15:36:00.007-08:002023-11-19T22:04:20.409-08:00Turtle Day in Dover, NH!November 9, 2003
<p><i> I didn’t make it to the “Turtle Day” event in Dover, NH, during which two special markers (a sign and a custom manhole cover) would be unveiled to publicly commemorate the fact that Kevin Eastman and I had created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at 28 Union Street in Dover back in 1983. </p>
<p>Knowing that my wife Jeannine WAS planning to attend (along with our daughter Emily and our grandson Arthur) I decided to write up some comments that Jeannine kindly agreed to read at the event, if an opportunity presented itself. As it happened, due to timing issues, she was not able to read all of what I wrote, so I thought I would post the complete text here<b></b></i>:</p>
<p>_______________________</p>
<p>Sorry I can’t be with you all today. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in this event for all their efforts. It’s quite an unexpected honor to have have our creation memorialized in this way.</p>
<p>I have many fond memories of the two years that my wife Jeannine and I spent in Dover. So many simple, homely things… here are a few… </p>
<p> Like walking downtown to eat at our favorite breakfast joint, the Wooden Spoon… </p>
<p>… Spending many hours at the Dover Public Library, where I had my first experience with a computer, when the library purchased one which they allowed patrons to use… </p><
<p>… and taking advantage of the library’s magazine exchange, where people would bring in the magazines they had finished reading and leave them in stacks on a shelf just inside the library’s entrance door, a type of recycling which I thought was such a great idea…</p>
<p>… taking long, quiet walks through the large cemetery not too far from Union Street…</p>
<p> … riding our bicycles to Tuttle’s Red Barn to pick up locally grown produce… and occasionally riding those bikes through the center of Dover and out to South Berwick, a lovely bucolic route…</p>
<p>… Going to the ice cream place in downtown Dover, the name of which escapes me now, but if memory serves, it was on the corner of a block which also had a downtown movie theater… </p>
<p>… Driving up the “Miracle Mile” and finding a store where Jeannine and I bought our wedding rings at the Service Merchandise store…</p>
… Getting some paid illustration work from the Moxie bottling company, which I think was in Rochester, New Hampshire, a town not too far from Dover, and through that work becoming aware of the legendary “Moxiemobile”…
… and getting some more paying illustration work for a local real estate business… </p>
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<p>… and of course taking advantage of our new proximity to the ocean, and enjoying the many gorgeous ocean views and beaches. </p>
<p>Although circumstances and necessity required us to move away from Dover after those first two years, I think I could have been happy staying there a lot longer. Now, there are two people I’d like to recognize for their importance in the creation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. </p>
<p>The first one — as you might guess— is my dear friend Kevin Eastman. I first met him in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1981. We knew pretty quickly after our first meeting that we wanted to work together, to collaborate on some kind of creative venture, likely in the area of comic books. </p>
<p>It took a little while, but we eventually got around to collaborating on a story intended for publication in comic book form. But it wasn’t the Turtles — this initial effort was a story about a robot called the Fugitoid. a character who would eventually find his way into the Turtle comic books. </p>
<p>Sometime in November of 1983, after Kevin had moved into the house on Union Street in Dover and we had formed Mirage Studios — which was kind of an “in-joke”, because it wasn’t really what you would think of as a studio, just Kevin and I sitting in a couple of old stuffed chairs with our lap boards, drawing and writing while we goofed around and watched various bad TV shows. </p>
<p>On a more or less ordinary evening, Kevin drew a sketch which would kick off a creative process that eventually transformed our lives in many unexpected ways. It was a drawing of an anthropomorphic turtle, standing on its hind feet, with nunchakus strapped to its forelimbs, and wearing a bandana. He called it a “Ninja Turtle”, which — all things considered — seemed to make complete sense.</p>
<p>I felt compelled to draw my own version of this unique character, making a few small changes. This inspired Kevin to work up a pencil drawing of four of these Turtle guys, each with a different martial arts weapon.
<p>He handed this to me to ink, which I was happy to do, and I ended up adding “Teenage Mutant” to the name. Fortunately, Kevin approved of this suggestion. The following day, we looked at these concept drawings again, and soon realized that we had to expand upon this wacky idea, which kicked off several months of writing and drawing, eventually resulting in a forty page comic book story. </p>
<p>I don’t think I could have asked for a better collaborator than Kevin. He brought to the Turtles project a great deal of talent and heart, along with incredible amounts of energy and a wild sense of humor.</p>
<p>We scraped together what money we had, including borrowing some from one of Kevin’s uncles, found a local printer in Somersworth, New Hampshire, and a few weeks later we had a stack of boxes in our “studio” filled with what turned out to be 3275 copies (we’d only ordered 3000, but the printer generously did a bit of overprinting) of the first printing of that first issue of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, which we premiered at Ralph DiBerndardo’s comic book convention, on May 5, 1984, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.</p>
<p>Events led to us temporarily dismantling Mirage Studios, as we both left Dover that year. But later that year we remade Mirage, this time in Sharon, Connecticut, where we soon found to our great delight that we could actually make decent livings creating and publishing further issues of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. </p>
<p>After two years there, we moved Mirage Studios to Northampton, Massachusetts, where it stayed until a few years ago. The other person I want to make note of for her importance in the overall story of the birth of the Turtles is my wife, Jeannine Atkins. </p>
<p>Back in 1983, she had plans to go to the University of New Hampshire, in Durham, NH — just down the road a piece from Dover — to pursue a Masters degree in writing. We got together that summer and fell in love. Not wanting to separate, we agreed to move to New Hampshire together. </p>
<p>I had never considered moving out of my home state of Massachusetts. but I had a strong feeling that it would be unwise to let this relationship end. So we moved to Dover together, and found that house on Union Street. It was owned by a Dover resident, from whom we rented the house for about two years. </p>
<p>We eventually got married there in June of 1983, our friends (Kevin included) and family members crowded into the small back yard. </p>
<p>The thing is, if I had not met Jeannine and moved with her to Dover, it is highly unlikely, implausible — I might go so far as to say nearly impossible — that Kevin and I would have ever ended up creating a studio together, locating it in a house in Dover (or anywhere, really)… and there would have been no late-night goofing around, and no drawing of a “Ninja Turtle”… and none of all this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff would have happened. </p>
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<p>— Peter Laird 11-2-2023</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-52055149569176179882018-09-30T10:43:00.000-07:002018-10-09T09:22:17.317-07:00SUPERMEGAFEST!!!<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just wanted to let all of you TMNT fans know that I will be attending "<b>Super Megafest 2018</b>" on October 13 and 14 in Framingham, MA, at the invitation of and alongside my good pal and fellow Mirage Studios alumnus <b>Steve Lavigne</b>! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's a link to the show's website:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newenglandsupermegafest.com/">http://www.newenglandsupermegafest.com/</a><br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It looks like a cool show with a lot of fun stuff happening! -- PL</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">SHERATON FRAMINGHAM HOTEL </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1657 Worcester Rd. <br />Framingham, MA 01701</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />SHOW HOURS:<br />Saturday, October 13th: 10:30 am - 6:00 pm
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sunday, October 14th: 10:30 am - 5:00 pm</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-89542177072408318632018-07-24T10:47:00.002-07:002018-07-24T10:47:36.202-07:00Lock Ciity Comicon <br />
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Recently, my good friend and fellow TMNT alumnus Steve Lavigne
invited me to join him at a comic convention in North Haven, CT… and I
decided to take him up on his offer. It's called the "Lock City
Comicon", and it's being held this Saturday, July 28, at the Best
Western at 201 Washington Avenue in North Haven.<br /><br /> I've never been to this show, so I don't know quite what to expect, but from the description at the convention website (<a href="https://www.lockcitycomiccon.com/">https://www.lockcitycomiccon.com</a>), it looks like it should be fun. And with Steve there, how could it <i><b>not</b></i> be? -- PL
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-73178163255960155822018-03-30T20:17:00.000-07:002018-03-30T20:34:00.929-07:00Glazing night!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Yesterday morning I was happy to receive a text message from <a href="https://tiffanyhilton.com/"><b>TIffany Hilton</b></a>, my pottery teacher, informing me and the other students in her "Intermediate Wheel" class that she was offering us an extra hour of class time -- we could come in at 5PM instead of 6PM, and use that extra time to deal with glazing all the pots we'd made.<br /><br /> To say I was ecstatic to be offered this extra time might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Though it's a necessary step and can produce beautiful surfaces and colors, glazing is my least favorite part of the whole pottery-making process. There never seems to be enough time. And <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>t's also stressful because, unlike throwing or trimming, where you are working in your own space at your own pace, and what you do does not really affect (or is affected by) the actions of your fellow students, glazing is different. There are only so many buckets of glaze to go around, and if another student is using (for example) "Sea Green", and you need to use "Sea Green", your only option is to wait until that person has finished with "Sea Green". And that can sometimes be a long wait, if that person has a lot of pots they want to glaze with "Sea Green" (like I did, last night).<br /><br /> And it's doubly stressful if your plan is to use two different glazes on certain pieces, as you then have to strategize when both of those glaze buckets will be available. There is a significant amount of time management involved in glazing.<br /><br /> It's also a multi-step process, with at least one of the steps being quite exacting. First, you have to wipe each bisque-fired pot down with a damp sponge, inside and out, to remove any accumulated dust which might affect how the glaze adheres.<br /><br /> Then -- and this is the exacting part -- you have to paint liquid wax on the bottoms of the pots, taking great care to make sure that you cover the appropriate areas so that the glaze, when rendered molten and thus fluid in the firing process, does not ooze down and come in contact with the kiln shelf, as this can result in the pots being bonded to the shelf, something TIffany frowns upon (and understandably so, as it leaves her with the problem of chiseling the offending pieces off of her kiln shelf -- not a fun activity).<br /><br /> The wax serves to act as a "resist", so that when you pull your pot out of the glaze bucket, the glaze in which it was just immersed will not adhere to the areas where the pot has been waxed. At least that's how it SHOULD work… sometimes the wax gets applied too lightly and/or patchily and the glaze sticks to the pots in inappropriate areas.<br /><br /> So now you're ready to dunk your pots into the glaze… but wait!<br /><br /> Before you can do that, the next step is <i>stirring</i>. The glaze is a mixture of various mineral powders in water, and as you might imagine, when the glaze sits unused for a while, the powders precipitate out and fall to the bottom of the bucket, creating a heavy, several inches-thick muddy mass which needs to be stirred to a certain consistency to be useful. <br /><br /> If you're lucky, you will choose a glaze bucket which has already been stirred by someone else, as then you might only have to stir it slightly to restore the glaze to the proper level of fluidity. Stirring up the glaze in a bucket which has not recently been stirred can take a lot of muscle and time. As it happens, both of the glazes I chose to use last night were in the precipitated state when I got to them. It's a chore, but necessary, or the glazes won't work right. <br /><br /> Okay, so NOW it's time to dunk your pot into the glaze bucket to give it a nice, even coating of glaze. This is usually a fairly easy job, as long as the pot is of a certain size and shape. Pots which are not large and have substantial feet are probably the easiest, as the size and feet allow you to get a nice, firm hold on them with only your thumb and one other finger (usually the middle finger). The thumb goes on the rim of the pot, and the other finger on the foot. Into the glaze bucket it goes, to a count of two, and then out, tilting the pot to drain off any excess glaze.<br /><br /> Once the liquid glaze dries on your pots, you have to then carefully use a moist sponge to wipe off any stray bits and blobs of glaze on the waxed areas (the glaze beads up on the wax, but doesn't all fall away… and there are almost inevitably little crevices and depressions into which some of the glaze worms its way, regardless of the coating of wax). Keep in mind that the liquid glaze dries to the consistency of a fragile, powdery paint which can chip or flake off easily, so you have to be very careful in how you hold the pot as you are wiping off errant glaze blobs.<br /><br /> Of course, all this work pays off (usually, unless you've made bad glaze choices) when the pots have gone through their final firing, and you end up with glossy finished ware that you can eat and/or drink from (or just look at!).<br /><br /> Still, it's a lot of work, and last night I was exhausted after glazing all of my pots. Here's a photo I took of my twenty-five unglazed pots waiting to be worked on (mine are the ones within the red border). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x5GoPNz3TZ8/Wr79LxkNVsI/AAAAAAAAGoY/lvWAnCDkbtEM54Gi0hcATunP5CS718OLwCLcBGAs/s1600/03-29-18%2Bglazing%2Bnight%2Bred%2Bline.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x5GoPNz3TZ8/Wr79LxkNVsI/AAAAAAAAGoY/lvWAnCDkbtEM54Gi0hcATunP5CS718OLwCLcBGAs/s320/03-29-18%2Bglazing%2Bnight%2Bred%2Bline.jpg" width="240" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I don't think there's any way I could have done them all without the extra hour TIffany gave us to work on glazing (I used every minute), and I thank her for that! -- PL</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-67526111691414352152018-03-25T08:48:00.001-07:002018-03-25T08:48:05.612-07:00Empty Bowls night<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> This past Monday, March 19, I attended my first "Empty Bowls" charity event at The Pub in Amherst. MA, thanks to the generosity of my pottery teacher, TIffany Hilton, who gave me one of the two free passes which she'd been provided as a contributor of bowls (somewhere in the neighborhood of 160, I think!) to the event. Even though she's been contributing bowls for years, this was the first time TIffany had been to one of these events.<br /><br /> The Pub was pretty packed when we arrived around 6PM, and it took about half an hour waiting in a slow-moving line to get to the point where we could pick a bowl from among those donated to the event. I spent some of the time in that line looking at the various choices of soups available, several of which appealed to my taste buds. (I think the line was moving slowly in large part because the people in it wanted to have enough time to scope out the wide variety of bowls from various potters' studios.) When we finally got to choose, Tiffany and I decided to go with a couple of bowls from her studio, and I ended up with one of the ones I'd thrown, trimmed and glazed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /> Then it was time to stand in line to get our bowls filled with soup. This line was moving more quickly, and in short order TIffany had her bowl filled with minestrone, while mine was filled with chicken and shrimp gumbo.<br /><br /> The Pub was so crowded with happy soup-eaters that I feared we'd be eating standing up, but fortuitously a moment later a table became available, and we were able to sit down to enjoy our soups. They were very yummy! And a few minutes into the soup, a server came to our table to bring us salads and glasses of water.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Here's TIffany about to enjoy her bowl of minestrone...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">... and me preparing to do the same with my gumbo!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-plQUOzhU2WM/WrfDIdLpd7I/AAAAAAAAGoA/z_6vMTCZoqsVmpl9kTyY9RDbvY0-3F2KwCLcBGAs/s1600/Pete%2Bwith%2Bbowl%2Bof%2Bgumbo%2Bat%2BEmpty%2BBowls%2Bevent%2B03-19-18%2Bphoto%2Bby%2BTIffany%2BHilton.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-plQUOzhU2WM/WrfDIdLpd7I/AAAAAAAAGoA/z_6vMTCZoqsVmpl9kTyY9RDbvY0-3F2KwCLcBGAs/s320/Pete%2Bwith%2Bbowl%2Bof%2Bgumbo%2Bat%2BEmpty%2BBowls%2Bevent%2B03-19-18%2Bphoto%2Bby%2BTIffany%2BHilton.jpg" width="240" /></a></span> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Although I am not a real fan of noisy, crowded spaces, I think I will go back to this event next year. I hope TIffany holds another bowl-making marathon and I get invited to participate. Thanks again, TIffany, for the opportunity! -- PL</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-37267496401056641622017-08-04T09:31:00.000-07:002017-08-04T09:31:04.985-07:00"Devil Anse"? Devilance?<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I was watching an episode of "American Pickers" a few nights ago, and pickers Mike and Frank were talking with an historian about authenticating an old document having something to do with the fa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">mous</span> feuding Hatfields and McCoys. Then one of them mentioned a name of one of the feuders -- William Hamilton "Devil Anse" Hatfield -- and my ears pricked up.<br /><br /> You see, one of my favorite Jack Kirby comic book creations -- "The Forever People" -- had ended its original run with a story featuring the titular group of young New Gods fighting a desperate battled to elude one of Darkseid's most feared minions, "De<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">vi</span>lance the Pursuer".<br /><br /> Devilance? Devil Anse? <br /><br /> The similarity in these two unusual names is striking. Could Jack Kirby have heard of "Devil Anse" Hatfield, and been inspired to create "Devilance", or at least the character's name? I wonder… -- PL</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-85251619163383288562017-05-06T21:05:00.001-07:002017-05-06T21:08:21.574-07:00May the Fourth be with you!<br />
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I have the feeling that I have posted about this before, though I can't recall for sure if I have. So please forgive my aging brain if you've read something like this previously!</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> I actually meant to post this a few days ago, on May the 4th -- now known in some circles as "Star Wars Day" -- but didn't get my act together in time.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Way back when I had my little used book shop (cleverly named "The Little Used Book Shop") in Norhampton, I took it upon myself to build a "Star Wars"-themed costume for Hallowe'en. I had been so taken with the extremely cool design of the stormtrooper costumes in the first "Star Wars" movie that I knew I had to try my hand at making -- as best I could -- a replica of one of those armored outfits.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> However, I wasn't going to even try to recreate the stormtrooper helmet -- the multiple curved surfaces just seemed beyond my limited capabilities. So I ordered a replica stormtrooper helmet from a company out in California which was doing officially-licensed "Star Wars" headgear. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> For the rest of the costume (except for the foot wear, for which I used some plain white tennis shoes, and the blaster rifle, which I picked up at a local toy store), I set to work building a framework using some nice flexible (but sturdy) cardboard from lingerie boxes I got from a local women's clothing store. As best I could, working from photos of the stormtroopers I found in various fan magazines, I constructed the various armor pieces with this cardboard.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> I then mixed up a home brew of papier mache (basically flour, water and shredded newspaper), and used that to build up the shapes of the armor pieces, sculpting the curves and details.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When the papier mache had fully dried, I applied multiple coats of pure white gesso, the material painters use when preparing canvases. It not only captured the white color of the stormtrooper armor, but in multiple coats, it also gave extra strength to the pieces.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> For the black under-armor garb, I bought a set of white long winter underwear and dyed them black, and sewed on strategically placed Velcro strips which corresponded to appropriately placed Velcro on the armor pieces, so that I could slip the pieces on and the Velcro would hold them in place.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> The last and most vital piece to the outfit was the helmet. It was getting pretty close to Hallowe'en -- I think about three weeks out -- and I finally received the helmet in the mail. Or at least I thought I had at first, though the suspiciously light weight of the shipping carton should have given me a hint. When I opened up the box, it was empty -- no helmet! I immediately wrote a frantic letter and sent it off to Don Post Studios. About a week later, I got another box from them in the mail. I should have held my sigh of relief, given that when I opened the box, there was no stormtrooper helmet -- just half of a Darth Vader helmet!</div>
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<b><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!</i></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Another frantic letter went out immediately, and finally, a few days before Hallowe'en, I got the right helmet. Whew! I couldn't fit my eyeglasses underneath it, so I couldn't see much while I was wearing it, but it looked great. I ended up using that costume for several Hallowe'ens, until the papier mache and cardboard started to disintegrate. I still have the helmet, though.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The photos which accompany this post resulted from a happy coincidence. I was. at the time, working on drawing the campus map for Amherst College (my first significant freelance art gig), and mentioned to the man who'd hired me (whose name, if memory serves, was Doug Wilson) that i had made this stormtrooper costume. He suggested that I bring it in and have a staff photographer (who I'd been dealing with as a source of reference photos for drawing that map) take some shots at various places on the Amherst College campus. So I got dressed up in the costume and traipsed around, posing for photos.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The photographer (whose name, sadly, I cannot recall) took a couple dozen shots, and somewhere I have the contact sheet showing all of them, but I only got a few of them printed as 8 by 10 prints.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Thinking back on it, I guess I was really "letting my geek flag fly" -- I don't know if I would have the nerve to do something like that today. -- PL</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-87042510382501117022017-04-12T09:21:00.000-07:002017-04-12T09:21:22.895-07:00Dreaming<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Dreams can be very curious things.<br /><br /> A couple of days ago, I was sleeping fairly late in the morning. Suddenly, I heard a loud, single bark from a dog, as if our dog Kirby was in the hallway outside my bedroom, and I woke with a start.<br /><br /> But I knew Kirby was not there, as he was, at that moment, in Maine. I had a few moments of disorientation until my sleep-befogged brain processed the situation, and I realized that I had dreamed that very realistic bark.<br /><br /> Then today I was feeling anxious about an odd business venture I'd gotten involved in -- custom-mixed plastic zipper bags of cereal, which I was personally mailing out to my customers. The anxiety came from my realization that for the first batch of shipment, I had -- for some stupid reason -- added milk to the cereal in the zippered bags before I'd shipped them. My mind was imagining the disgusted reactions of customers who would be receiving plastic bags full of mushy cereal slop and sour milk…<br /><br /> … and then I woke up.<br /><br /> Curious. -- PL</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-46832984334020203542017-03-19T09:43:00.001-07:002017-03-19T09:43:14.487-07:00Bernie Wrightson, 1948-2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> This morning I saw the sad news that the world of comics and illustration has lost one of the great ones -- Bernie Wrightson has passed away.<br /><br /> Way back in the early to mid-1970's, I -- as a comic book geek and aspiring comic book creator -- had the good fortune to be hired by the late, great Norman Witty of Northampton, MA, to work in his used book and comic book store, Omega Books, and even go to a few comic conventions with him as well (my first experiences with such). I got my first original Jack Kirby page at one of these shows, a cool Vince Colletta-inked page from "The Mighty Thor", a piece I still have, and treasure.<br /><br /> I learned a lot about comics and comic art from Norman during those years, and and although many details of my life back then are a bit fuzzy, one thing I remember <i><b>very</b></i> distinctly was his pointing out the artwork of Bernie Wrightson in one of the first issues of "Swamp Thing" from DC Comics, a book which was getting "hot" at that point in time among collectors, with the first issue being a real collectors' item, in large part because of the uniqueness and high quality of Wrightson's artwork. Norman directed my attention to a number of small panels on one page, expressing his opinion that these small panels were lovely pieces of storytelling art in and of themselves, showing more care and artistry in a few square inches than many other comic book artists would put into whole pages.<br /><br /> And he was right!<br /><br /> I was blown away by the care Bernie put into his drawing, and especially his inking, which was lush and precise. I became a big fan of his work, and followed it pretty avidly through most of my subsequent comics-buying years. I was even lucky enough to find (if I am remembering correctly, with the help of TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman) and purchase a beautiful full-color piece of his work featuring my favorite dinosaur, Triceratops. It now hangs in my studio.<br /><br /> As fans of his art know, Bernie went on to do a lot more amazing work. His illustrations for "Frankenstein" probably represent a high point in his career -- imaginative, amazingly detailed and almost superhumanly inked with a fluid precision which still boggles my mind. <br /><br /> He will be missed. -- PL<br /><br /> <i>P.S. The illustration I chose for this post is my hand-drawn copy of one of Bernie Wrightson's wonderful drawings from his run on "Swamp Thing", one of a number of such pieces that I did on wood back in the 1970's. I would pick favorite artwork from comics and do my best to carefully reproduce them by hand in pencil, ink and color on 3/4 inch pine boards. Then, using the tools at the UMass wood shop, I would carefully cut out the figures with, typically, a combination of band saw and jigsaw, then cover the edges and back with black ink, finishing with several coats of protective polyurethane.<br /><br /> This particular example, created circa 1975, was actually owned by the aforementioned Norman WItty, who was a great admirer of the work of Bernie Wrightson. I'm not sure if I sold it to him or gave it to him, but apparently he liked it enough to keep it in his collection until he passed away a few years ago.<br /><br /> (The photo here comes from an eBay listing for the piece from 2014.)</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-21133171670035245722017-03-05T05:33:00.002-08:002017-03-05T05:33:56.956-08:00A matter of perspective<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Enduring the bitter cold on a windy Maine beach in 16 degree weather yesterday, my friend John Dusenberry and I noticed an interesting phenomenon -- a stark, almost perfectly straight line of white etched across the distant shore rocks. It was immediately apparent that this was due to ice on the rocks, frozen during high tide.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Walking over to the rocks, that bold white line began to break apart, and as we moved to a position where we could look down on some of those rocks, the dramatic straight white line collapsed into a jumble of fragments.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It reminded us both of the importance of perspective -- things often look very different from another viewpoint. -- PL</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-53979624916130048582016-08-08T08:37:00.000-07:002016-08-08T08:37:32.145-07:00Different Eyes<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> I recently enjoyed a lengthy visit from <b>John Dusenberry</b>, a very dear friend from the old days, someone I'd met in high school in North Adams. I was showing him some of my recent pottery work, and pointed out one piece I wasn't really happy with -- a two-handled mug made in my last hand building class. If memory serves, this was a coil-built pot. Coil-building is not my favorite technique -- the results are never (at least from my hands) quite as elegant as I would like them to be. And this pot was my least-favorite piece from that class.<br /><br /> This particular mug body was somewhat misshapen and ugly, so in a desperate attempt to make it a passable piece, I quickly made two handles and attached them to the mug body, offset on opposite sides. I told myself it could be a mug for "two-fisted coffee drinkers'. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> Yeah, right.<br /><br /> So I was showing John this piece of pottery, and he looked at it, turning it around in his hands as he examined it with his artist/designer's eye. Then he did something unexpected -- grasping the mug by one handle, he held it out for me to take, which I did, grabbing it by the other handle. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> And with that simple gesture, John pointed out something about this piece which had completely eluded me up until that point: Having two handles on a mug nicely solves the problem of how you hand a mug filled with a hot beverage to someone else. Think about it -- if the mug is hot, how does the recipient take it in their hands? It's awkward at best, and typically, the move is for the giver to set the mug down on a flat surface and turn the handle toward the recipient.<br /><br /> With two handles, that awkwardness disappears. The handover of the hot beverage is accomplished with no muss, fuss or burnt fingers.<br /><br /> As I pondered this, it occurred to me that it could pave the way for what I started calling the "Love Mug" -- if you were with a person with whom you were intimate, you could easily use a mug of this configuration to SHARE a hot (or cold) beverage, passing it back and forth with ease and comfort.<br /><br /> Don't get me wrong -- I am not at all saying I came up with something completely new. While I have not as yet spent any time on the Internet searching for mugs of this type, I strongly suspect that other people have stumbled upon this same idea.<br /><br /> The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes a fresh perspective, especially one from a discerning individual, can make all the difference, and allow you to see possibilities you had never imagined. Sometimes different eyes are all it takes. -- PL</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-80251603877146386652016-04-28T20:00:00.002-07:002016-04-28T20:00:58.704-07:00IMPORTANT UPDATE!!! Re: chance to bid on TMNT #1 first printing at Artrageous benefit gala<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hey! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I
got an update from my daughter Emily today regarding bidding on the
first printing of TMNT #1 which I donated to the Umbrella Community Arts
Center for their fundraising gala event called "Artgaeous". Here's what
Em had to say about how to bid on this item:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"<i>To
have the first opportunity to bid on this piece of comic book history,
you'll have to either actually be at Artrageous or buy a ticket to the
event. (Tickets to the event can be purchased at <a href="http://theumbrellaarts.org/event/artrageous">http://theumbrellaarts.org/event/artrageous</a>.)
If you are unable to be there in person but are interested in bidding,
you can purchase a ticket and send Emily your cell phone number. You
will get a unique bidder link to join the auction and can bid along with
the other gala attendees. However, if the book doesn't sell on the
night of the gala, it will be offered on eBay or another online auction
website. If you have any questions about the auction, you can contact
Emily at <a href="mailto:emily@theumbrellaarts.org">emily@theumbrellaarts.org</a><span id="goog_2016049430"></span>."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So that's pretty cool! By the way, this copy of TMNT #1 first printing has been graded by <b>CGC</b> as a <b>9.6</b>. A photo of the "slabbed" book which Em just sent to me is at the top of this post. -- PL</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-12139412060188481202016-04-26T21:53:00.000-07:002016-04-28T20:05:50.040-07:00ARTRAGEOUS! A chance to bid on a first printing of TMNT #1 on May 7, 2016!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> My daughter <b>Emily </b>works for a wonderful nonprofit arts organization in Concord, Massachusetts called <b>The Umbrella Community Arts Center </b> (<a href="http://theumbrellaarts.org/">theumbrellaarts.org</a>) and they are having their annual fundraising gala, <b>Artrageous</b>, on Saturday, May 7 at 40 Stow Street in Concord.<br /><br />
There will be a silent art auction at the gala, featuring all kinds of
cool things, including a lot of original artwork… and a<b> mint condition</b> <b>first printing</b> of "<b>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</b>" #1 (the original Mirage Studios edition, published in 1984). This book has been graded by CGC at a <b>9.6</b>,
and I am donating this copy to the art auction from my small personal
collection of TMNT comic books. All proceeds will go to The Umbrella. <br /><br />
The starting bid on this rare comic book will be $5,000 (five thousand
dollars), and I am also offering (if a buyer wants it) to personalize
the book with my signature (and probably a small Turtle head sketch)
inside the book or on its cover.<br /><br /> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I got an update
from my daughter Emily today regarding bidding on the first printing of
TMNT #1 which I donated to the Umbrella Community Arts Center for their
fundraising gala event called "Artgaeous". Here's what Em had to say
about how to bid on this item:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"<i>To have the
first opportunity to bid on this piece of comic book history, you'll
have to either actually be at Artrageous or buy a ticket to the event.
(Tickets to the event can be purchased at <a href="http://theumbrellaarts.org/event/artrageous">http://theumbrellaarts.org/event/artrageous</a>.)
If you are unable to be there in person but are interested in bidding,
you can purchase a ticket and send Emily your cell phone number. You
will get a unique bidder link to join the auction and can bid along with
the other gala attendees. However, if the book doesn't sell on the
night of the gala, it will be offered on eBay or another online auction
website. If you have any questions about the auction, you can contact
Emily at <a href="mailto:emily@theumbrellaarts.org">emily@theumbrellaarts.org</a><span id="goog_2016049430"></span>."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So that's pretty cool! By the way, this copy of TMNT #1 first printing has been graded by <b>CGC</b> as a <b>9.6</b>. A photo of the "slabbed" book which Em just sent to me is at the top of this post. -- PL</span> -- PL</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-47870981738871669772016-04-21T08:54:00.000-07:002016-04-22T08:17:15.971-07:00Not awkward, not weird, but definitely a "family photo". At least they got ONE thing right!<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Sometimes the Internet is just <i>SO</i> stupid. Or, to be more accurate and fair, it's the <i>people</i> who post certain things on the Internet…<br /><br /> I heard from a friend today that she'd seen the following online at this URL (http://www.fizzdot.com/the-most-awkward-and-weird-family-photos-of-all-time/28/):</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /> … and she was wondering if she was mistaken in thinking that the guy in the photo was me. I replied and told her she was not wrong, and that this was in fact a photo taken back when the first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was being filmed in North Carolina. Fellow TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman and I had been asked to pose for some publicity photos on one of the movie sets with the actor who played Leonardo, garbed in one of the incredible Jim Henson Studio-created Turtle suits. <br /><br /> Following that session, I asked if it would be okay if I got a shot of me and my wife and infant daughter (who were also briefly visiting the movie set) posing with Leonardo, kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The actor inside the costume (who, if I am remembering correctly, was named Dave, and who told us that he too had recently become a father) was very gracious in agreeing to take the extra time to do this, a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">l</span>though he was sweating uncomfortably inside that heavy foam-rubber suit in the sweltering North Carolina summer heat.<br /><br /> I've always considered this photo to be a cool artifact of that time and experience. I'm glad we got the chance to pose for it, and I wish I knew the photographer's name so he or she could get the proper credit.<br /><br /> So, for the dumbass who posted this as supposedly one of "The Most Awkward and Weird Family Photos of All Time", here's a fact-check for you:<br /><br /> 1.) We (the people in the photo) love the "Teenage Mutant NINJA Turtles". We understand that they are sometimes called by the more generic "Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles" title in certain other locations, and there's nothing wrong with that, but we've always preferred to think of them by the original title -- "Teenage Mutant NINJA Turtles".<br /><br /> 2.) We didn't hire a Turtle for a day to pose with our infant. See above for the real story, not your invented nonsense.<br /><br /> 3.) The baby is not a boy, she's a girl -- my daughter, Emily, now 27 -- who loves this photo (even if she cannot, obviously, remember being there when it was taken!). She also did not grow up to hate the Turtles.<br /><br /> So there you go -- wrong, wrong, and wrong.<br /><br /> It's a useful object lesson, I think -- context IS important. -- PL</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-30358705654547547492016-04-20T21:30:00.003-07:002016-04-20T21:30:49.683-07:00Tiny turtle<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I was on a very pleasant bicycle ride with friends Gary and Rick today, heading down the bike path to Easthampton, MA, when I spotted something quite small moving at a pretty good clip directly across my path. At first I thought it was some weird-looking bug, but as I slowed to a stop to take a closer look, I realized that it was a tiny turtle!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I got out my camera and a quarter to indicate the size of the intrepid little critter, and took a photo...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">... then gently picked up the turtle and moved him to the relative safety of the side of the path toward which he had been heading. -- PL</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-44936454353699168662016-01-30T08:10:00.000-08:002016-01-30T08:10:03.137-08:00A stealthy critter glimpsed<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> This is one of the crappiest photos I've ever taken, but I was hurrying and shooting through a second floor window. As I was getting up today, and walking downstairs to eat breakfast, I paused on the second floor landing as some movement in the driveway outside caught my eye.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iu6UZKrq144/VqzfCQITYYI/AAAAAAAAGgA/5cPGG9yYpcU/s1600/01-30-16%2Bbobcat%2Bwalking%2Bacross%2Bdriveway%252C%2Bbad%2Bphoto%2Bsm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iu6UZKrq144/VqzfCQITYYI/AAAAAAAAGgA/5cPGG9yYpcU/s320/01-30-16%2Bbobcat%2Bwalking%2Bacross%2Bdriveway%252C%2Bbad%2Bphoto%2Bsm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /> It was a large wildcat, casually strolling across the driveway. I'd never before seen one of these beasts in the wild, and I wish I'd had a better camera at hand and more time to use it. I only managed to get this one shot, the blurriness of which unfortunately obscures many details. But you can get a sense of the size of the animal as it is passing in front of the plow on my white truck. <br /><br /> Here's a cropped version of the photo showing the wildcat. -- PL</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SSzyNvrFRvM/VqzfJIPW90I/AAAAAAAAGgI/XxGnuKSbea4/s1600/01-30-16%2Bbobcat%2Bwalking%2Bacross%2Bdriveway%252C%2Bbad%2Bphoto%2Bcropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SSzyNvrFRvM/VqzfJIPW90I/AAAAAAAAGgI/XxGnuKSbea4/s320/01-30-16%2Bbobcat%2Bwalking%2Bacross%2Bdriveway%252C%2Bbad%2Bphoto%2Bcropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-11007428071967757622015-11-29T08:11:00.000-08:002015-11-29T08:11:39.164-08:00What the -- ?!<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This morning I was looking though "Signals", one of the many catalogs I receive in the mail, trying to get some inspirations for unusual Christmas gifts, when I stumbled upon this on page 17:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--bela5CaZM4/Vlsin5yxACI/AAAAAAAAGfo/7IyDpmYE4ns/s1600/Lego%2BCrazy%2BAction%2BContraceptions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--bela5CaZM4/Vlsin5yxACI/AAAAAAAAGfo/7IyDpmYE4ns/s320/Lego%2BCrazy%2BAction%2BContraceptions.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Here's the pertinent detail:</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The word "Contraceptions" is what jumped out at me. It seemed very out of place in this catalog, and I didn't really think that the Lego company was branching out into birth control devices, but… you never know.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The mind boggles when considering what might be considered "Crazy Action" birth control. Can you imagine the possible function of the "Squeeze Claw Grabber" mentioned in the product description? </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It's probably best not to go there.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This may be the strangest proofreading error I've ever come across. One has to wonder what was going through the proofreader's mind at the time. -- PL</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-87667521397762724872015-10-30T08:45:00.001-07:002015-10-30T08:45:53.132-07:00Glazing night<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Last night saw the final session of the "intermediate wheel" class I'd been taking in Tiffany Hilton's pottery studio, and it was "glazing night". I was concerned that I might not have time to glaze all my pots (twenty-five in total) in one two hour and forty-five minute class, even with a plan to make them pretty simple, design-wise. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I still had a bunch of pots to wax the bottoms of, so I got right into that. I also had a plan to try something new, with TIffany's permission -- I'd brought two cookie decorating tools, small plastic squeeze bottles with little red protective caps. My plan was to fill at least one of them partway with glaze, and then see if I could squirt it out onto a pot which I would have spinning on a wheel (not too fast, of course, as it would not be secured to the wheel!), with the aim of producing some interesting patterns, perhaps spirals.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I decided to go with "iron red", which I would then cover with "olive green", producing a kind of black hue where the two colors merged. At first, because the glaze was kind of watery, and the nozzle a bit too wide, the squeezing of the plastic bottle produced some blobby shapes, not at all like the more delicate patterns I had hoped for. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then I got the idea of putting the tiny red cap back on the bottle, and poking a smaller hole in that cap with a needle tool. This allowed me to create a thinner, more controllable spray, which actually ended up working pretty well, and I used it on the insides AND the outsides of some of my larger pots and a few of my mugs. Some of the effects of the spray on the outside of the pots were unexpected and attractive. I wish I'd taken some photos of them before I did the next step of dipping the pieces in the olive green glaze, which obscured what I'd done with the spray. But I hope the final result will show those patterns.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The photo at top is a shot of some of my glazed pots from last night (the top two shelves), including some I decorated using the technique I just described. I can't wait to see what they look like once TIffany fires them! -- PL</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-60307847660240048982015-10-23T07:13:00.001-07:002015-10-25T08:39:57.876-07:00Teapot Tuesday<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Often, when I get to pottery class, either hand-building or intermediate wheel, I don't really have a plan for what I will be doing. I get there and I let the clay speak to me. Or perhaps a better way to put that is that the clay and my hands have a conversation, and eventually something emerges.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But this Tuesday morning, in my hand-building class, I arrived with an idea. It wasn't a fully-formed idea, but I knew that I had two prepared slabs of leather-hard clay to play with, having made them at the end of the previous Tuesday's class. The idea was pretty basic -- make a boxy teapot.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I decided to use a shape I'd stumbled onto during my last hand-building class in the Spring. I'd made a template which was essentially a rectangle with one of the ends narrower that the end parallel to it, so that the shape (and I am sure there is a name for it, but I can't at the moment think of it) tapered toward that end. I used this template to make four pieces of clay which I then joined into a four-sided form. But instead of joining them narrow end to narrow end, which would have resulted in a sort of truncated pyramid shape, I decided to alternate the order, flipping each successive slab so that the narrow end joined with a wider end. I'm probably not articulating this too clearly. But the result was a very intriguing geometric shape which pleased me greatly, and I went on to make several hand-built pots using this technique. Here's an example from that last class:</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Anyway, I thought it might be fun to do something similar to build the body of this slab-sided teapot, although the shape I had in mind was less vertically-oriented and more squat -- as teapots generally are.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It came together pretty quickly. Once I'd textured the slabs (using two small carved wooden rollers TIffany has in her studio, part of her extensive selection of texture tools), I traced the shapes with the template I'd made onto the slabs and carefully cut them out.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Once I had the basic body shape, complete with base, I had to make a top with a lid, and decided to go with a long rectangular lid, again made from pieces of a textured slab.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then it was on to the spout, which came out a little funky -- I think I was rushing a bit, and didn't consider its shape carefully enough… so it isn't exactly centered or straight. But at least it i positioned at the right height, thanks to TIffany stepping in and reminding me to keep that in mind (I'd made a teapot previously with a spout poorly positioned, making it impossible to fill the pot more than two-thirds full without tea beginning to spill from the spout).</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For the handle, I'd considered building an angular shape out of the slab, but ultimately decided to try something a little different, carefully (so it wouldn't crack) curling a piece of the softer slab into an half-cylinder shape, then cutting fingerholds into that once I'd attached it.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Will it all work as a teapot? Will the handle be comfortable to hold? Will the spout dribble or flow? The jury's still out. But it was a lot of fun to build. -- PL</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-52785849793850979982015-08-19T06:36:00.001-07:002015-08-19T06:36:26.219-07:00Turtle sighting<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Yesterday was a hot one here in western Massachusetts, and my friend Rick and I decided to take our bike ride on one of the shadiest routes we know of -- the rail trail bike path from Northampton up to Look Park in Florence. We often do this, in large part because Look Park is just such a beautiful place to ride through.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Like many times before, we took a break for lunch on a bench overlooking the small pond at the park. While sitting there and talking, I noticed out of the corner of my eye an object which seemed to be making its way across the pond, but just under the surface. We were about a hundred feet away, so it was a little difficult to discern details, but I soon realized it was a big turtle! I would guess that it was about a foot and a half long.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I couldn't remember ever seeing a large turtle swimming like this. I've seen similar beasts sunning themselves on rocks or logs near water, but never cruising along just under the surface. I tried to get a good shot of it, but my little pocket camera could only manage these:</div>
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Here's a cropped version of the second one:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_Pf9l_ipJaM/VdSFeklrhsI/AAAAAAAAGeY/DKA0p4EtWsU/s1600/08-17-15%2Blarge%2Bturtle%2B%2528snapper%253F%2529%2Bin%2BLook%2BPark%2Bpond%2Bcrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_Pf9l_ipJaM/VdSFeklrhsI/AAAAAAAAGeY/DKA0p4EtWsU/s320/08-17-15%2Blarge%2Bturtle%2B%2528snapper%253F%2529%2Bin%2BLook%2BPark%2Bpond%2Bcrop.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Though I couldn't see a lot of detail, I think it looked like a snapping turtle. -- PL</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-24783154556143529892015-07-24T06:06:00.001-07:002015-07-24T06:06:59.031-07:00Redundancy<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I saw the following headline on CNN.com this morning:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6B52OAQ8AYw/VbI38s01ReI/AAAAAAAAGdw/VAd_UCDWyBY/s1600/CNN%2Bheadline%2Bon%2B07-24-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6B52OAQ8AYw/VbI38s01ReI/AAAAAAAAGdw/VAd_UCDWyBY/s1600/CNN%2Bheadline%2Bon%2B07-24-15.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I had to laugh. -- PL</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-41974112943898977272015-03-28T06:41:00.004-07:002015-03-28T06:43:09.699-07:00A sign of Spring<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One of the sure signs of Spring in our area, at least in my opinion, is the dirty snowbank. </div>
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As the winter plods on, plows push snow into large, dense mounds lining the edges of streets, driveways and parking lots. In moving this snow, the plows also scrape up a lot of the sand which the Department of Public Works trucks spread on the pavement to give drivers a bit more traction on the slippery stuff.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What happens as the weather starts to get gradually warmer is this: The snow begins to melt, and the piles of snow to shrink, and as they do, those particles of sand within the piles begin to move closer together, becoming darker and more obvious against the snow, rendering what were previously almost pristine white mounds of snow into blotchy messes. </div>
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It's deliciously ugly, because even as these unsightly shrinking mounds become ever more unsightly, they tell us that the warmth is coming… just wait! -- PL</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-47434297595200001922015-03-10T07:32:00.001-07:002015-03-10T07:32:56.465-07:00The Hidden Geometry of Snow<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NT2nzFaIpGQ/VP8AUJdyIWI/AAAAAAAAGbc/8InA6M08zCU/s1600/shadows%2Bon%2Bsnow%2Bcrop%2Bsm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NT2nzFaIpGQ/VP8AUJdyIWI/AAAAAAAAGbc/8InA6M08zCU/s1600/shadows%2Bon%2Bsnow%2Bcrop%2Bsm.jpg" height="190" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A thick accumulation of snow -- something we have seen far too much of in recent months -- can seem almost featureless in certain lighting conditions. The homogeneous nature of the bright white blanket makes it difficult to see the underlying shapes upon which that frosty mantle rests.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That's why I have always enjoyed the way that trees can help to reveal the hidden geometry of snow, especially during those times of days when the angle of the sun drapes the trees' cold shadows over the landscape. Graphic against the pale snow, these broad, stark lines show us much as they ripple over hillock and plunge into decline. -- PL</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1686991059820767773.post-17060600185448458662015-02-27T14:57:00.004-08:002015-02-27T14:58:51.663-08:00Leonard Nimoy March 26, 1931 - February 27, 2015<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was inevitable -- one might even say logical -- but it's still sad to read about.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PzN6bMRW5Lo/VPD1oNM8p8I/AAAAAAAAGbE/aBXfHgZL4dU/s1600/Bruce%2BLaird%2Bpainting%2Bof%2BSpock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PzN6bMRW5Lo/VPD1oNM8p8I/AAAAAAAAGbE/aBXfHgZL4dU/s1600/Bruce%2BLaird%2Bpainting%2Bof%2BSpock.jpg" height="289" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">At least some comfort can be taken in this: He lived long, and prospered. -- PL</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Artwork by Bruce Laird 2008.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2