Really odd animal fostering – mother hen and puppies

Yorkshire pudding may get protected origin status like Champagne

Guerrilla knitting is the new trend in urban tagging

A King penguin goes goth

Quirky Project for 2010

It’s time to find out. The first offering on eBay that was strictly matter of fact yielded no takers (even with no reserve.) Not that anyone was that surprised. It takes some selling to make something like this attractive.

As I’m getting ready to send ten copies off to the Museum of Bad Art, I thought this next effort should begin with my own advice on art analysis

So to start, some obvious contrasts

• Pastel background compared to swarthy foreground
• 19th century (Lincoln) vs 20th century (Kennedy)
• Facial hair vs none
• No scandal vs quite a bit

Leading into the greater conflict of secrets kept and secrets revealed, infantile innocence lost to humanity and the power of conspiracy theories and distrust of lawyers.

And finally putting it all together:

The artist’s deliberate use of two iconic figures represents the contrast between secrets kept and scandal revealed; the inevitable movement of society across time to seek knowledge of itself. The subtext that this compulsion can become self-destructive is underscored by the expectation that the viewer will search for what these these two men held in common and be aware of the conspiracy theories surrounding them.  The knowing glance that makes direct contact with the viewer could be interpreted as a smirk or a message across time that secrets kept are indeed hidden until revealed. Thus the viewer becomes  a participant in that same inevitable collision of tectonic plates as privacy yields to a right to know while hero worship is unyielding in the face of factual evidence.

The jarring deliberate use of child-like pastels and brush strokes in the background remind us all that innocence is inherent at birth but lost to the same society that seeks to know, to mold, and to dominate.

There you have it – does it help?  We’ll find out shortly…

So the exorcised ghost auction I mentioned last Friday has concluded and it turns out the going rate is just under $1000 US per ghost.  Which is interesting given that most people (including the seller)  want to get rid of ghosts not add them to the family. Of course, maybe the buyer just really wanted a vial of pale blue water and couldn’t come up with one any other way.

I did a search on the same site and could not come up with any aliens for sale which seems a pity  – anyone that’s watched enough Star Trek knows there are all kinds of aliens without a visible physical presence…

2 (not just 1) exorcised ghosts are up for auction

Garden zombies hit the market – unclear if these were gnomes before they became the undead

A giant pumpkin is being grown as a sailing vessel

The gummi bear chandelier has been reinvented in acrylic (but it didn’t get any cheaper)

Matilda the hen laid a giant egg but didn’t beat the world record set in 1896

Snowmen are becoming more politically active

You can now send your stuffed animal on its own vacation in the Czech Republic – it’s exhausting looking that cute all the time!

You gotta love a man in uniform

It seems like every four years the media wakes up and remembers curling is an Olympic sport and starts the same jokes all over again. I can’t really blame t hem as I once sat through a collegiate curling practice – 20 years later and I would still rate that experience up there with Vogon poetry

2010 though, is whole new Olympic year thanks to the Norwegians and their crazy pants You know you’re on to something in curling when other teams are laughing at you (they’re pretty used to everyone else rolling their eyes..) And the argyle is actually in keeping with the sport when you consider that both argyle and curling are credited to Scotland – the once place where fashion dictates wearing argyle socks with a plaid kilt as long as the colors match.

If these look like your kind of pants, you can order them online for a mere $89 – however the extensive press coverage means they are now on back order and you can expect to see red and grey argyle pants just about everywhere soon, including on the King of Norway.

The big questions – do the pants help you win? Well at this point Norway is in the semi-finals so they don’t make you lose.

Unintentionally this week is all about quirky  animals but the humans in the story are a little bit odd too…

• Odd snake with tentacles – am I the only one that sees a resemblance to a slug?
• Cat proves that felines have untapped powers even when blindfolded by tin can
• Giant rabbit – evolving to something truly menacing?
• The sheep that thinks he’s a house pet and gets away with it

It’s hard to believe that Nurdle.Net has been online for one full year – particularly since I’d been  sitting on the domain name since the .com days.  It’s been quite a year; Seth Godin left the very first comment, proving that talking about someone’s socks will get you more attention than high volume traffic. For all that, the most popular posts from the year have had to do with holidays and art – who would have guessed?

1. How to analyze art so you sound like an expert

2. Don’t forget to celebrate! Unusual holidays in June

3. 55 Model T’s will race from New York to Seattle

4. Don’t forget to celebrate! Unusual holidays in May

5. How to promote your favorite artistic experiment as a masterpiece in thee easy steps

An original gnomer repents but probably too little too late in terms of the hobby

“Thinking outside the box” is the most hated office jargon phrase

A woman received a bequest of 3000 watering cans – 2999 more than the rest of have

America’s longest married couple now on twitter dispensing advice(they got married sometime around 1923…

Although I’m a bit behind with an update I’ve been hard at work. Alas, the first eBay attempt got no bids even with no reserve. But then I really didn’t “sell” too hard. I have however offered the print to the Museum of Bad Art and they’re willing to take it! With any additional copies I care to donate (tax deductible) to be auctioned off to support the museum.  Maybe that will increase your interest to own your very own copy? No?

Next step- get those prints off to the museum before they change their mind and start the official art analysis write-up…