A Dozen Things off the Top of My Head

Glassware by Robinson Scott

1. Which one does not belong in this list of Mother Earth News cover stories?
a. Care and Cultivation of Permanent Garden Beds
b. Double-Duty DIY Solar Solution
c. Incredibly Easy Homemade Pizza
d. Learn to Be Self-Sufficient (Advice from Leading Experts)
Answer: These are all cover features in the 2012 Feb/March 2012 edition. Yummm. Pizza.

2. Just saw Being Julia this past weekend. I really enjoy watching Jeremy Irons. He is so very, very good in whatever he does. The film itself was much more interesting than I expected. Kudos all around.

3. There will be an autumn Twin Port Gallery Progressive in October, the 11th and 12th. Mark your calendars.

4. On September 8, Lee "Colorblind" Johnson and I will be performing jugband music at the Carlton Chicken Swap. Anyone know anyone who might be available to join us and play washtub bass?

Patricia Canelake

5. The Robinson Scott / Patricia Canelake opening at Lizzard's was well attended last night. Nice event, interesting works. Scott, who resides in Anoka, does glass work that is very much worth seeing. Canelake titled her portion of the show "Unleashed." Her large, loose paintings of farm animals and other topics swim in color. I especially liked her mixed media work. Lizzard's gallery is a half block west of Pizza Luce and the Tech Village on Superior Street.

6. We often think we have to move faster and sleep less to accomplish more. Jesus walked everywhere, never took a subway, did not have a smartphone, never wrote a book and yet continues to influence the world nearly two thousand years later. His career, once his life work really got started, lasted less than four years.

7. Currently watching a documentary on Woody Allen. My first date in college was to ask a girl whom I'd met in orientation to go to Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run. I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt. She did not laugh the whole time. I knew then that we had a problem.   

8. There is a call for submissions by the PROVE Gallery for their September show. The theme is whimsy. That is, they are looking for art that is whimsical in nature or created with that kind of light-heartedness. You can find details on Facebook.

9. A cat in the window is worth 100 points, right?

10. Why are people so fascinated with UFOs?

11. I'm currently working on a poster comprised of images of my art assembled to form a bust of Dylan. Would you pay $5 for something like that? Would you pay $10 if half went to flood victim relief?

12. “There’s no black and white, left and right to me anymore. There’s only up and down, and down is very close to the ground. And I’m trying to go up, without thinking of anything trivial such as politics.” ~Bob Dylan

Have a great day, friends.

15 Random Thoughts

A short list of topics off the top of my head on Wednesday, June 17.

1. Interesting that Twitter postponed its maintenance in order to keep communication channels open for Iran protesters.

2. What will be the net-net of the apparently stolen Iranian elections?

3. Friends of ours were in Iran as missionaries when Khomeini overthrew the Shah. They sold their house and their possessions and exchanged all they owned for 3 Persian rugs and a gold belt which she wore out of the country as they escaped by night through Turkey.

4. When Susie and I lived in Mexico for a year we visited an orphanage in Cuernavaca which was very near to where the Shah of Iran owned an estate. The world's richest lived on this street that we had to walk past in order to get to the orphanage, which was in a poor area a stone's throw away. Richard Nixon had a place next door to the Shah, or a few estates down. They were all gated homes.

5. Cuernavaca is nicknamed The Land of Eternal Spring because of its beautiful year round weather. It is on the south side of the mountain upon which Mexico City sits, but elevated enough to avoid the tropical heat further down the mountainside below.

6. On one occasion, while driving home from Cuernavaca, we took an alternate route to the west and as we climbed an intolerably steep road to the top of the mountain, we found that the car had overheated. We were in the middle of nowhere, so I put the car in neutral and we coasted down the other side of the mountain. There was a small lake (large pond) on that other side and I refilled the radiator with water from this pool.

7. That particular landscape, was like the rolling hills of Wisconsin, lush, green, beautiful... Never saw anything like that in all our other travels south o' the border.

8. I remember a farm there which had made a fence entirely of the hoods of Volkswagen Beetles. They were all different colors, side by side.

9. Many people do not know that in 1863 the French took over Mexico. It was during our Civil War. The U.S. was too pre-occupied to enforce its "Monroe Doctrine."

10. The trigger event for Mexico being taken over was the death of seven or eight French soldiers on the beach at Vera Cruz. France used these lost lives to stimulate war fever. Because their "honor" was besmirched, they sent armies across the ocean and took over the whole country.

11. Maximilian, of Austria, was installed on the throne of Mexico, an ill-fated plan that resulted in his death by firing squad a few years afterwards.

12. Imagine that.

13. Last night I measured and priced out more than eighty paintings and drawings for an art show I am considering in July at The Venue.

14. Drudge Report must be on the ascendancy because it is in the Top 20 searches today on Yahoo, #12... up from 28.

15. Six Flags is bankrupt. Makes me curious about the theme park business in general. What happens to the rides when people no longer want to pay to play?

Well, it's time to start my day. Make sure you make the most of yours.

A Good Day for Randomness

"He saw what he did not see."

My dreams seemed exceptionally vivid upon waking this morning. There were a whole series of images and scenes which varied in their degree of bizarreness, many involving people I know. In some scenes I was part of the action, in others just a spectator. One scene was somewhat shocking, and some exceedingly involved. The very last featured John Malkovich. I was watching him as he boarded a train. He was dressed in somewhat loose fitting Oriental attire and there was a side door onto the traincar which was low to the ground (much like a subway platform) and in a childlike, goofy way he would step into the compartment and sit himself onto the floor. As he did so, some brightly colored object of enormous size like a multi-colored cash register would fall out from under his shirt or even come out of the sleeve. It would make a clatter on the platform and he would giggle and the authorities would take it away. He would be standing outside the train again, and would then go through this act again. Four or five times in a row, as Malkovich sat down inside the compartment, a large object would tumble out onto the platform. Each time, he would smirk or laugh, trying to conceal his merriment. I got the impression he was a holy prankster of sorts.

Like many dreams, it all seemed so real as I was watching. But when I woke, it no longer mattered that I didn't understand what was going on.

So, for a few minutes, I will make a list of random observations from my desk, from about my walls, the floor. Today is a good day for randomness. And like my dreams, it doesn't have to make sense, yet it will be -- to some extent -- revealing.

501 Great Writers, a book I received for Christmas. Published by Barron's, Julian Patrick general editor.

A Medica card, UnitedHealthare.

A Sony MagicGate Memory Stick for my camera, purchased on EBay. It doesn't work for some reason. Let the buyer beware.

An Olympus Digital Voice Recorder, model WS-110. Made in China, I recently recorded and interview of George Barris, of Batmobile and Mokeemobile fame, using this device which has a USB plug-in so you can download recorded files onto your computer and play them with Windows Media Player or iTunes.

A couple packages of Post-it brand page markers for marking pages in a book or magazine. I have a pink one marking the page of Geoffrey Chaucer in the book 501 Great Writers, and an orange one marking the page of Arthur Rimbaud.

Two flash drives, one with the letters HIN on it. HIN stands for Hot Import Nights.

A Post-it note with my cousin Gary's phone number on it. Gary was my favorite cousin growing up and we used to talk about living on the same block when we grew up. He became a fireman, and later fire chief I believe, in Oklahoma. I became an advertising and PR guy in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sometimes things don't go the way you expect.

A Verizon cell phone, slim black, always on vibrate.

A 2.5 gig Mobile Hard Drive. My Sony Vaio laptop crashed about six weeks ago and a computer wizard extracted all its contents onto this little silver box about the size of a 3 x 5 card. 2.5 gigs seems fairly incomprehensible to me. My first Mac, a 512Ke, had no memory for storage at all, just a disk drive slot where your pushed in the 512K disk. It had about 1000 K of "working memory" I believe. My next Mac, the SE, had a 20MB hard drive. I enlarged its capacity with a program called Disk Doubler.

An envelope with Wilmer A. Wagner's Advance Directive, or living will. I pulled it from my file cabinet because it's about time I make one for myself, just in case. Two friends of mine who are my age have had heart attacks recently.

A Seagate backup drive. It holds 100 or 200 gigabytes, I think.

An AMSOIL G-1406. This is a piece of literature which I wrote and designed back in 1997 when our company introduced the Quick Lube program and XL-7500 synthetic motor oils. AMSOIL was the first synthetic motor oil to satisfy API certification standards in 1972. The founder had been a jet fighter pilot in the Air National Guard, and was determined to use jet engine oil technology in cars. And he did it. Because of the extended drain intervals and cleaner operation, these oils have genuine environmental benefits. This literature item was designed for use as a point-of-sale piece for a counter top display which I also had a hand in designing.

An off-white plastic wall outlet with two slots.

An empty beer bottle, Full Moon.

A couple nickels, one here and one there.

A list of things I have to do today. But first, I'd better walk out and get the paper and feed the animals. We're down to a cat, three ducks and two dogs.

Four harmonicas, one of them a Hohner Marine Band in the key of C. One is a Hohner Golden Melody, D, and two are Blues Harps, in C and G. I also have a complete set of Johnson Blues King harps which I purchased on eBay and keep in a satchel. The four cited are my favorites. The two Blues Harps were purchased when I was a freshman at Ohio University.

What kind of random things do you see from where you're sitting as you read this blog entry today?

25 Random Things About Ed Newman

Yesterday I was "tagged" on Facebook. I just started a Facebook page about six weeks ago and it is a mixed blessing. Every one of these variants of Web 2.0 involves a little bit of time commitment, yet I see why some people like Facebook... If you are going to hang out in a social network, you might as well hang where some of your real friends are.

A week or two ago I think I was tagged by someone else, but didn't know what it meant... but yesterday John Heino tagged me and I sort of got it. You write 25 random things about yourself, then share this list with 25 "friends" on Facebook. Yes, it is a lot like a chain letter, but I like the exercise better because it is more free form. There are some of those email chains that ask you all these questions. You are locked in by someone else's design. I like coloring outside the lines, so this feels much more natural to me.

Here's my list, then. And if you want to post a random list about you in the comments... or somewhere else on the Internet, have at it. And if I am lucky, maybe I'll also figure out how to tag a few people on Facebook, too.

25 Random Things About Ed Newman

1. My internet “handle” since 1994 has been “ennyman” which was a variant of my initials (e.n.) blended with the concept of Everyman from French Revolution, which fascinated me when I was in junior high school.
2. I also liked the Alamo in junior high school and built a model of the Alamo for Mr. Capetta’s seventh grade social studies class.
3. I am currently reading a book called Polk, who was president of the U.S. during the Mexican War. He was the second president from Tennessee.
4. My favorite president was U. S. Grant. Mark Twain published his memoirs, which I was reading in the hallway when my wife Susie was in labor the day my son was being born. I have read the Memoirs of U.S. Grant twice and the fifty dollar bill is my favorite. I have several other books on Grant and recommend Grant Win the War to any Civil War buff, especially Grant fans.
5. I’ve been tagged a couple times already but didn’t know what it meant. Without resorting to a 2 x 4 across the side of the head, John Heino explained it better, hence I am following through this time.
6. I have published more than 250 articles and 600 blog entries and 535 Tweets as of Feb 2, 09. (You can follow me on Twitter at ennyman3)
7. My original website looked like this: http://www.enewman.biz/ and was created in 1994-95 using Adobe Pagemill and some html I taught myself from a book, which is handy to this day.
8. I like learning new things. I tried podcasting when it first started, started a blog to learn what it was about.
9. I was one credit short of being an art major in college. Got a B.G.S. instead.
10. My grandmother encouraged my mom to enroll me in art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art when I was about five or so. She told me I never scribbled when I was a toddler but was fascinated by tracing things through the paper and stuff like that.
11. Having an art background has helped my career. I am currently Director of Advertising at AMSOIL INC. in Superior Wisconsin. Some samples of my work can be seen here: http://www.amsoil.com/adslicks.aspx
12. I moved to New Jersey when I was twelve.
13. I went to college at Ohio University in Athens, 1970-74
14. In 1976 I came to Minnesota to go to Bible school at Bethany Fellowship where I met my wife Susie.
15. Ich spreche ein bischen Deutsch, pero hablo Espanol un poco mas.
16. I’ve been a Mac guy since 1987, but had to learn how to use PCs at the office, so you might say I am ambidextrous, if you catch my drift.
17. My ties rack is an antler which is fastened to the side of a shelf in my home office. In a white shirt business suit culture the tie is your one means of making a statement. Use it.
18. I own about thirty Dylan albums and CDs and have quite a few books about Dylan including his Chronicles, Volume 1, which I have read twice.
19. I have been listening to audio books for nearly ten years whenever I am in the car and have probably listened to hundred of them…
20. I like reading favorite books or stories over and over again. I used to do this in second grade and both the librarian and my teacher commented on it. Favorite books, favorite music, favorite movies… their like good friends that you never get tired of.
21. Today was Groundhog Day, and Groundhog Day is also one of my favorite films along with Educating Rita, Truman Show and Paths of Glory.
22. Life is amazing. If you’re bored with life, the fault lies within.
23. When it comes to politics I like to read both sides of issues in an effort to develop my own perspective. I strongly dislike being told what to think or how to think about it.
24. I agree with Francis Schaeffer’s first sentence of Whatever Happened to the Human Race? When he wrote, “Cultures can be judged in many ways, but eventually every nation in every age must be judged by this test: How did it treat people?”
25. The Twin Towers came down on my 49th birthday. It was not my best birthday.