These are old archived entries from my journal, Ornamental Illness. I have eliminated all graphics (except those in context of an entry) to save on my bandwidth usage.


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Saturday, August 23, 2003

Speaking of which...

I found this article this morning via a Brian Eno newsgroup I subscribe to about one of his art teachers (he did the Another Green World cover). Sort of interesting. One of those portraits he looks like some kind of crazed demonic elf. Unfortunately there's no portrait of him from his early Roxy years...now THAT would've been fun to paint...feathers...makeup...crazy outfits. But evidentially, according to these articles, the Roxy era was when his prof lost track of him because pop music didn't interest him. Fairly typical, eh?

It does, however, give me a strange sort of feeling to know that Eno was close to a professor of his. I mean, I'm not, you know...close to my professors? Never was. Lost track of them all. See my experience was MUCH more like that of how Roger Waters describes in "Another Brick in the Wall pt. II", a teacher stifflng creativity. Yes, even my art professors stiffled creativity. Well I guess that explains a lot on my part. About a lot of things. It was very foreshadowing that "ABITWpII" was a hit duirng my freshman year in college. Like my soundtrack. I know it was written about school children in grammar school, but the concept can carry through to young adults in college as well.

Posted by Ann on 08/23/03@08:03 AM CST ..::Link::..

Friday, August 22, 2003

I found the motherlode...

...of Musical Russian Nesting Dolls. (don't ask why I found it...it was an accident).

Are these sick or what? I thought the Pink Floyd ones were bad, but look at the Doors on the 2nd page. WTF? I mean, which band were they looking at for references when they painted THOSE?

Posted by Ann on 08/22/03@06:19 PM CST ..::Link::..

Snippets from a Candy Coated Conversation: An Abridged Mix

Ann and Stan enter the "closing room" at the title and abstract corporation for their 48th refinancing in the past 3 years. A bowl of assorted candy sits on the table.

Ann: (fishing around in the candy bowl) Do I want anything? No... (pushes it aside, then pulls it back) Mmmm...Mr. Goodbar.

Stan: Who was that actor? Nick Nolte?

Ann: (Mentally WTFs at Stan's pop cultural illiteracy) Nick NOLTE?!?! It was Richard Gere!

Stan: Oh yeah, Richard Gere.

Ann: Richard Gere looks like a short, bland version of Roger Waters.

(Ann and Stan discuss Richard Gere's shortcomings in contrast to Roger's greatness...or something like that).

Ann: Well, I look like a short, plump version of Diane Keaton.

Stan: Curvy version.

Ann: Ok, a short, curvy version of Diane Keaton. (fishes around in the candy bowl some more) Let's see...Looking for Mr. Goodbar...Mmmm...Krackle. Those are also good.

Stan: You were looking for Mr. Goodbar, but you had to settle for a Krackle.

---

Well, you had to have been there. It was so funny, that when the woman who would help us with the closing entered the room right as Stan said the thing about settling for a Krackle, I was trying to stifle a laugh, much like Elaine and the Pez episode in Seinfeld. Why does candy and the men who make jokes with it crack women up so much?

Posted by Ann on 08/22/03@03:33 PM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM: Don't answer the door

I was at home, except the layout of our house was a little different. It was much darker inside, and I could see who was at the front door from the living room; there wasn't a wall blocking the way. Someone rang the doorbell, and I saw it was someone I used to know a long time ago that I have no desire to see again. But I couldn't pretend I wasn't home because I had been making noise, and she was pretty persistent in ringing the bell. I finally let her in, and she was really glad to see me, but I wasn't glad to see her. I know a lot happened after that, but I forgot it all now.

Posted by Ann on 08/22/03@08:49 AM CST ..::Link::..

Thursday, August 21, 2003

As I was taking the dog out...

fatstaringman (10k image)...This man stared at me. He was standing in the parking spot of a house across the alley. He was waiting for some plumbers to come, so I can understand why he was out in the alley to direct them where to park, but did he have to be so obvious about staring at me?

And why do fat men have such short arms? They're like arms for a small child! I hate arms like that.

Posted by Ann on 08/21/03@10:22 AM CST ..::Link::..

Hell

You don't have central air. You have only one air conditioner, and that one is on the second floor where you need it during the day where it gets REALLY hot because that's where you work. You sleep on the first floor. You have the option of:

1) drawing the blinds and sleeping in the nude (what we usually do in the summer)
or
2) using your window fan, but it's noisy and you have to sleep with clothes on because you have to pull up the blinds for it to work.

Which do you choose? And does it even matter because either way, it's too hot and you wake up without any sleep after tossing and turning and sweating all night and feeling nauseous from the heat and humidity, and you can't go back to sleep during the day because the plumbers and sewer workers are outside making horendous noise.

I just want to die right now.

Posted by Ann on 08/21/03@10:09 AM CST ..::Link::..

Twin Peaks

This person writes an interesting postmodernist deconstructivist essay on Twin Peaks. I think I'll need to re-read it to digest it all. I found it doing a search on "formica table." I had no idea what compelled me to search those words.

Posted by Ann on 08/21/03@09:39 AM CST ..::Link::..

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

1972-1973

The Bowie and Pink Floyd segments were all too short, but at least they weren't that smarmy about them. Nothing new, video-wise that I haven't seen before...most, if not all, of the Bowie footage was from the Ziggy Stardust movie of the final Zig performance. Most of the (oh so short and mostly Gilmour-centric) Floyd stuff was from Pompeii or the upcoming DSOTM DVD. But it gets so tiring when all these pubescentesque pundits that VH1 has assembled for the commentaries keep drudging up the "great music to get high to" angle. Get over it already.

I just wish VH1 would get their act together and focus on music rather than all the silly nonsense kid shows and board games.

Posted by Ann on 08/20/03@10:12 AM CST ..::Link::..

Naked DREAM

I was with Stan in the car. We were travelling. We had to go into some store, but I was naked. I went in anyway, trying to cover myself up. I was more scared to walk out of the store naked and back into the car. It was most odd. Why couldn't I just put some clothes on?

Posted by Ann on 08/20/03@10:02 AM CST ..::Link::..

Citywide Lead Pipe Removal Program

Next Monday, supposedly, will be the day when the plumbers come to blow up remove the lead water pipe from under our house. I will be taking the dogs and staying at a motel during that time while Stan deals with their pneumatic jackhammer and sees to it that they don't do anything retarded. They've been on our block this week and the noise is getting louder and louder and will only get worse by the end of the week. Plato is barking a lot. I can't work. It's highly annoying.

Posted by Ann on 08/20/03@09:59 AM CST ..::Link::..

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

1970-1971: The Review

I watched the VH1 70s special last night...the first two years, 1970 and 1971. It was as sarcastically smarmy as I was expecting, with commentary from people who didn't seem like they were even *alive* or *born* in the 70s. Some experts recounting of the decade, huh? I was ultimately more disappointed than I was anticipating being. A total bummer, man. I noticed they did use Bauhaus font (which is what I use in the graphics on this site and at ann-s-thesia.com) for their display fonts, which in my case is because I truly love it and always have since I first became aware of typefaces in the mid 1980s. I'm sure in their case it was just a cold, calculated graphic decision, just like using the color orange. The thing is, Bauhaus, because it is more of a display font rather than a text font, needs to be either displayed large, or the graphic needs to be still for a while for the viewer to have time to read it. But when someone's name flashes by in Bauhaus demi with their title underneath it in a smaller size of Bauhaus LIGHT of all ridiculous weights, for ONE SECOND, it is impossible to read it. So since I wasn't acquainted with this new young breed of comedians they paraded as "70s experts", I have no idea who they were or what they did. I couldn't read their names. Not everyone has a 46" plasma display TV. I remember when we had a 13" TV in the 1980s and we could read all the text that was on it. Producers designed for small TV screen sizes back then, not for gigantic viewscreens. I'm not sure what our TV size is now...somewhere around 20" I would guess, but the text was unreadable. And it's not because my eyesight is getting worse, it is definitely a design problem on the show producer's end. But of course they wouldn't catch that in pre-production because they're probably all viewing it on high definition large screens.

One person that stood out because of his complete unserious approach to everything and his lisping smarmitude was Mo Rocca (I'm not sure if that's spelled correctly...thanks to VH1's poor graphic job, I couldn't exactly READ it). I remember one time about a year ago or so, Stan and I were watching something on TV which was a serious debate about something important...global issues...terrorism...war...the 2000 Florida chad debachle...my mind forgets just what the topic was, but it was a serious topic. I'm pretty sure this Mo fellow was one of the panelists, and everything he said was just a stupid childish mockery of the whole situation. It's as if the guy never grew up or had a serious thought in his head. Everything was ironic, but it wasn't good irony...it was just that silly gayboy constant commentary that drives me up a wall. Politics can be funny and humour can be political. I've always enjoyed Mark Russell's shows on PBS--it's light, but with a bite. But having Mo serve as a panelist for anything topical with a semi-serious side is showing a major lapse of judgment. I suppose the same can't be said for VH1's "I Love the 70s", since the whole approach to it is one of non-seriousness, so by that standard he fit right in. I nonetheless had this great urge overcome me to pummel him across the head...and I'm not a violent person. If I continue to watch this special, we may be in the market for a new television set, and not just because we need a larger screen to view the poorly done graphic text. No, I'm afraid a shoe will go through our poor boob tube, aimed directly at Mo's cranium.

Riddle me this...VH1 is (supposed to be) a cable music channel. Then why was music one of the lesser covered subjects? They sure spent a lot of time on tacky television shows, especially the ones created for children (Sesame Street, MisterRogers, Electric Co, Puff'n'Stuff, etc.). I was a kid during those early 70s years, but didn't watch those shows then, and am not interested in being reminded of them now. Show us the music, please...you ARE about music, aren't you? The only halfway interesting thing they showed was some Led Zeppelin footage, and that's pretty bad considering how much I do not care for Led Zeppelin! But it sure beats Tom Jones and Neil Diamond, the viewing of which produced an urge to rid myself of the night's dinner. What about the deaths of Jimi and Janis and Jim? Not a word was mentioned about them, in keeping with the gaiety of the mood. But even if the drug-related deaths were too heavy of a topic for such lite faire, certainly they could've highlighted other musical groups of the time...The Stones, The Who (oh, excuse me, yes, Roger Daltrey was shown for a millisecond when discussing something about Jesus hairstyles...how thoughtless of me to forget such a weighty, intellectualized topic) or a plethora of other acts that were around at the time. Instead, they went right for the jugular of pop culture: kids' toys, The Partridge Family, All in the Family, Hee Haw, the Carol Burnett Show.

Is it too optimistic of me to hope for something a little better tonight? The picture of David Bowie and Marlon Brando from 1972, and the 1973 picture featuring David Gilmour and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd gives a glimmer of hope for those of us who want more meat and less frothy fluff. But I'm not getting too excited, which is hard, as any bit on Pink Floyd I will await with devoted anticipation. Instead, I will look ahead to a week from today when I'll drop over to my local Best Buy and pick up a copy of the Classic Album Series Dark Side of the Moon DVD. Now that will be time well spent.

Posted by Ann on 08/19/03@10:45 AM CST ..::Link::..

DREAM - old friends and old people

I don't remember where I was, except that it was in a crowd of people. I remember seeing two women there, one was Lamya from Colorado. I don't have any idea who the other woman was. They were both wearing white shirts. I was glad to see them both. We were going to sit down in some rows of seats, but were trying to get past a row of old people who had all their metal walking gear and prosthetic appliances on the floor in the aisle in front of them which made maneuvering down the aisle quite difficult. They made no attempt to move their stuff so that people wouldn't have a hard time walking down the aisle. We were laughing about it and exchanging odd glances.

Posted by Ann on 08/19/03@09:36 AM CST ..::Link::..

Monday, August 18, 2003

Reminder

I realized that last Monday's entry with this picture scrolled off, so I put it back for today, both as a reminder to me to watch that silly 70s program on VH1 this week, and to, well, stare at the lovely picture of Roger. Dave's not bad either, but Roger....♥♥♥

...and I should've cropped off the hideous couple on the right, but I guess it does serve as a good contrast, in a weird way.

Posted by Ann on 08/18/03@08:00 AM CST ..::Link::..

Gross Medically-Related DREAM

I was going to have one of those allergy patch tests done on myself, except it was nothing like I was expecting. The nurse who was administering it was very slow in doing it, and very disorganized. I remember them smearing peanut butter on my arm or something. They also didn't puncture the surface of my skin, which I thought was unusual.

Then I was sitting around a table or in a circle with a bunch of other people, some I recognized as co-workers from Depressions. Supposedly, everyone was supposed to take turns at making up a rhyming poem as they went around the room. I was preoccupied with something and realized I didn't prepare a poem for when it was my turn. By the time they got to me, there was a dentist there who was putting these spacers between my front teeth so that they wouldn't be so crowded. It was painful. What he didn't realize, though, was that because there was no room in my mouth, it forced one of the teeth behind my row of teeth. What a bad dentist. I pulled out the spacers because it hurt so much and realized that they were little pieces of wood with metal wires in them. Weird.

Then I was with Lucifer Sam and I was taking him out to go to the bathroom. He started to poop this huge "sack" of poop...it was as if his poop was contained in a stomach-like pouch covered with fur. He pooped at least three of these things that were about half the size of the dog himself. They just kept coming out of him. He also had pink and orange dye in his poop. Most odd. We were concerned.

Posted by Ann on 08/18/03@07:54 AM CST ..::Link::..

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Here's a quick diagram...

catwhole (2k image)...that more or less shows what the cat looked like that was in my dream last night. Note that I have not included any blood, flesh, sinew, bone, assorted rotten matter or maggots that were also present, so hopefully viewing of this image will not induce wretching (although reading this entry might).

Posted by Ann on 08/17/03@06:45 PM CST ..::Link::..

This man...

creepyman (2k image)...stared at us in the hardware store today. He worked there. There is a help wanted sign on the front door.

Posted by Ann on 08/17/03@06:05 PM CST ..::Link::..

Gory DREAM

I was at someone's house who had a very big yard. Stan and my dad was there, along with some other people, but I don't know who they were. Stan and I had those big foam rods that kids have at the beach that they hit eachother with. We were beating my dad up with them. He was laughing, like he knew we were playing, which we were. I can't imagine this in real life. There were a bunch of cats there too, some of which were ours, but we kept losing track of them. I was afraid they'd get outside and get lost. Some of the cats were in really bad shape, they'd been in fights, and chunks of their bodies were missing. There was one cat that was missing the back portion of its back, right above its tail. You could look into it and see parts of its inside and maggots, but it was walking around like everything was ok. Gory.

Posted by Ann on 08/17/03@01:41 PM CST ..::Link::..
By Ann @ 20:55 AM CST:08:20:03 ..::Link::..