Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin'?

I have now come to that point in the year where I have to decide: Do I want to purchase really cool Christmas cards or do I want to make them. I have made them in the past and they have turned out well. Like the one above. But the time it takes just kills me.
There are all sorts of really cool things out there. Robert Sabuda always has cool cards for sale. Masahiro Chatani has a wonderful book on making Christmas cards.
Hmmm. What to do what to do.

Where the F#@K are my shoes!!

I have two pair of clown shoes both made by the wonderful Wayne Scott & Marty Scott (pictured above). However, I our recent move I can't remember where I packed them. I am preparing to break a self imposed rule of mine and wear my clown costume out on Halloween. My kids have requested that I wear it because they haven't seen me in it in well over a year now. So I am off to search piles of boxes to find my beautiful and elusive shoes. Now where did I put my greasepaint?

When looking for clown shoes, there are only two options in my opinion. Wayne Scott or John Spears. Both are top quality craftsmen, and damn fine people.

Wayne Scott shoes - http://www.clownshoesandprops.com/
John Spears - http://www.spearshoes.com/

The Vault of Mystery @ Ravensblight

Here's a bit o' fun for your next Halloween party from our friends at Ravensblight.

It's the Vault of Mystery, a dice rolling "spirit communication tool" cheaper and less creepy than a Ouija board. You can get all the files and instructions you need here.

Only twenty days left cats and kittens. Get your goth together and have a wonderful Halloween.

Art Appreciation Part Deux

I feel that if I am going to wax poetic about Jeaneen Barnhart, I need to give equal time to another favorite artist of mine. Robert Cassilly of St. Louis does beautiful art on a grand scale. From his 67 foot tall giraffe in Dallas, to the massive, bus-sized turtles in St. Louis. Cassilly can breathe life into the largest piece. His busts capture the spirit and temper of the subject, and his animals display the beauty of their form. All the while his art is tempered with a spirit of fun.
His finest work by far though would have to be the City Museum in St. Louis. Located in the 600,000 sq. foot shell of the International Shoe factory, this work in progress is a testament to his creative and playful spirit. It is a peek into the creative mind of the man himself. Walls tiled in printing plates, mosaic lizards made of watch parts, every nook and cranny filled with new and sometimes hidden surprises. A life size whale that, as you walk into it's mouth, turns into a hidden cave, that then takes you to the ceiling where it morphs into a rambling tree house. That's just the first few feet of the ground floor!
Salvaged pieces of buildings make up what is an architectural gallery throughout the museum. This ladies and gents is art you can touch (and play in, on, & around). I feel like I'm five all over again when I am here. At the same time I can marvel and appreciate the work, inspiration, and creativity that has brought to life this once forgotten building.
If you go, (and you should) plan on spending the day. They practically had to drag us out at five o'clock. The sandwich shop has a good menu, and you can grab a beer in the Lizard Lounge. Yes a museum that serves beer, ain't it grand?

83 Days and Counting!!!!

Yes! Yes! Hell Yes! Less than three months until Halloween. Eighty-three days?!? I haven't started planning. I need supplies. I need a game plan.
Hell, I need to get it together.
I have to get a costume together. I would love to be a pirate again, but everyone and his uncle will be Jack Sparrow this year. Bad for me, but good for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I would love to do something evil and gruesome maybe, but no one talks to the ones in the creepy costumes. I could go low tech, but there's no respect for the ones in the "This is my costume." Tee shirts. Anime or cosplay costume? Nope too geeky. Period costume? Nope too Ren-fair. AAARRRHGGHHHH. Screw it, I'll just cut two holes in a sheet.
As I have in years past, I will be turning to my two favorite Halloween sites. For cool All Hallow's papercraft, I turn to Ravensblight by Ray O'Bannon. Chock full of creepy stuff providing hours of fun for the Halloween addict.
For all things pumpkin, I turn to Zombie Pumpkins. If you enjoy pumpkin carving like I do, this is the site to visit. The brainchild of artist Ryan Wickstrand, ZP will provide hours of squash destroying goodness.

Art, and the Beauty of Strength and Movement

Today dear readers (both of you), I am branching out from the norm. No paper folders, and no variety entertainers. Instead I present the artwork of Jeaneen Barnhart. I just took a look at her work this morning and I hope what I say here can tell you how I feel.

The works I have seen online of both the equine and human form are stunning. Her lines and movement in her art bring to life the strength and energy of her subjects. Her ability to convey her vision to the audience; the strength, the movement, the energy, truly evocative. And in a side note dear to my heart, she works on paper.

I have been too verbose. In short, this woman can draw her ass off. I was lucky enough to meet Jeaneen last night. When she talks about her art, you can see and hear her passion for what she does. When I saw the images online today, that passion shows through. I hope one day to see her work in person.

It's short notice, but if you are in Louisville tonight, you can see her work and the work of others at the Art For The Animals event tonight. You could walk out of there with an original Barnhart. So get on over there and bid 'til your paddle is sore.

For your consideration, I have posted two of her works that particularly moved me. The top picture, Race Study With Red III, and the lower, Male Pose with Color IV. I think they are just stunning. Tell me what you think.

Things that make you go "Arrr!"

Yo ho ho. My friends and I have become addicted to a trading card game. Now before you picture a bunch of grown men throwing around Pokemon cards, or worse yet, sitting in mom's basement playing Magic the Gathering. We found the game Pirates.

The trading cards are like credit cards that have been laser cut. You punch pieces out of the cards and use the pieces to build boats. Those are your playing pieces. Now with your freshly constructed armada, you attempt to either decimate your opponent, or get all the gold.

This game is from the brilliant mind of James Ernest of Cheap Ass Games. On the top of my list of talented game designers. If you still haven't looked at his site, you should.

This thing appeals to the paper model maker in me. But it also appeals to the game guy in me because each card pack has everything that you need to play the game. So in theory you could just buy one $4 pack and if you don't like the game, never play it again. Or just leave it at the one pack and play it over and over. Oooor you could be like me and my friends and seek out every pack that the company has ever made. Sorry, is my geek showing?

If you would like to know more, check out the Wizkids Pirates! site.

Cheapass Games

Yes I know, "Two posts in a month? Unheard of!"
Cheapass Games Double Secret Website has some very cool stuff for the game player in you. If you look carefully, you will find stuff for the paper geek in you. Card games, board games, dice games, you name it. I especially like the company's mission statement:

Cheapass Games: We Make the Rules.
We here at Cheapass Games are aware of two basic facts about games: they cost too much, and they are at some level all the same.
If you ignore the clever shapes they come in, the cheap little plastic pawns are an interchangeable part of most of the board games in your house. So are the dice, the money, the counters, the pencils, and just about every other random spare part. These generic bits and pieces can account for as much as 75% of a game's production cost, and that cost gets handed to you.
If you had your choice, you'd probably invest a little bit of money in one good set of gaming paraphernalia instead of twenty crappy ones, and then just buy the new part of every "new" game. Yet most companies insist on selling you the whole package every time; it's like bundling a can opener with a can of beans.
Cheapass Games come with the bare essentials: boards, cards, and rulebooks. If you need anything else, we'll tell you. And it's probably something you can scrounge from a game you already own, or buy at a hobby store for less than "they" are charging you for it. Heck, if you need to, you can even buy the parts from us.
And once you've assembled your collection of generic small parts, you can use them for every new Cheapass Game. We've standardized our designs so your gaming toolbox will last. If that sounds pretty good, page through our website and check out all the cool things Cheapass Games has to offer you.

The games are dirt cheap. He even has some orderware games available. This is a wonderful concept. It is like shareware, but if you download the game and like it, he asks that you order a game off the retail site. Wonderful idea.

I also noticed that there hasn't been any activity on the site since August of last year. So let's get some more activity on the site and get it active again.

Urgent New Post- "America's Got Talent Fraud!"

Yes it's been ages since I posted to my blog. Mea Culpa. However I had to post this in the hopes to pass this around.
I believe America's got talent is NOT a true reality TV show!!! They have fabricated drama by way of "contestant tragedies" in the final episodes. The guy who calls himself "Ivan the Urban Action Figure" was either paid to take a dive or perpetrated a fraud on the producers. I'm leaning to the former. To add gravitas to their mediocre "Selection Process" episode, Ivan supposedly fell and and knocked himself unconscious.
But in watching the fall, myself and other circus veterans cry Bullshit. The fall he took is called a toothpick. It is a back fall where you roll up onto your head and keep your body stiff (arms at your sides), you pause at the top and then flop over to your stomach. Ivan does it beautifully.

When he dives into the chairs, at no time does he hit his head. He uses his hands and forearms to move chairs and break his fall as he rotates to his back. And with what's left of his forward momentum, he rolls up into a textbook example of a toothpick. The show claims that during this dangerous stunt he was knocked unconscious. If he was out cold, he wouldn't have rolled over to his back while falling through the chairs to set up the toothpick. The stiff-as-a-board landing that follows is just icing on the fake.

It's bad enough that the media ghouls they have judging the contest insult hardworking entertainers by pretending that a fat Hispanic drag queen or a Bollywood lipsynch hack are worth a million bucks and a leading spot in a show. Equally as bad is that all they are doing is lining it up so that Simon Cowell gets a new recording artist.

Now they insult the performers further to think that they have to fabricate drama, as if their real-life struggles aren't interesting enough. It works for the Olympics.

I believe fraud number two for the night was the singer who had to go back to his cruise ship to perform or his boss would fire him. Firstly, the dressing room he was in was empty and clean. Not possible. If it were a working dressing room there would be makeup boxes, costume pieces, pictures of family tucked into the mirrors, in short, evidence that there were people who used that room for the show on the boat. Second, if you are a singer on a cruise ship, you don't run around during the day in what looks like a ship's porter uniform. And third, if he left that day and the boat had pulled out, how did the TV crew get there? Once more I cry Bullshit.

I have friends and acquaintances who have appeared on this show. Do I think they should headline a show? Just one out of the five, and even then I have reservations. Do I think that they are all hardworking professionals who deserve respect and not to be insulted by those responsible for the show. A resounding yes. Their stories on how they got to where they were are just as interesting and drama filled as any scripted crap they can come up with.

The unfortunate thing is that my regular readership is about three. I need to find a way to get this out. Any Ideas?

To view the fall for yourself, here's the Youtube link.

Happy First of May

Why the first of May? Today is the day that the circus traditionally would leave their winter quarters and head out on their route for the year. New clowns are called First-of-Mays for their first year on the road, and are usually given the grunt work in the alley (moving trunks, cleaning soap mats, etc..). So folks I present you on this obscure holiday with a rare First of May photo of yours truly.

It sure is a departure from my present day makeup.

I would also like to take a moment on this day to thank the inimitable Jon Weiss for giving me my "clown name". Clown College 1990, we were practicing dive rolls, dive rolls, dive rolls, dive rolls. Then we suddenly switch to belly flops.

I hit the mini-tramp, vault into the air, and while heading to the mat it struck me that I should be belly flopping. While trying to adjust mid-flight, I smacked headfirst into the mat. After we determined that I could move all my fingers and toes,I spent the rest of the day out of commission.

The next time I went to vault, I ran toward the mini-tramp and as I ran, Jon yelled, "Let's go Neckbone!" I laughed so hard that I stomped on the tramp, slammed into the vaulting horse (Charivari wall) and went sprawling.

I knew I was stuck with the name when my props started turning up with the word Neckbone written on them. For a circus clown, a "clown name" usually is more like a fraternity nickname than a working title. Your buddies will call you "Nasty" but that's not how you introduce yourself to the general public (Well, OK, Nasty did introduce himself that way. The mean little bugger.)

So thank you Jon. Thank you readers. And a happy First of May to all my brother and sister raccoons out there.

Cool 4 Cats

There's a new kid in town. Cool 4 Cats has a fistful of cool paper automata that you can make yourself. I especially like the Kong model. I just don't think I have the room to keep it safe. If you get the chance to put one together, let me know how it turns out.

Paper Models From Shin Tanaka

Urban cool meets geeky paper craft. Thank you Shin Tanaka! Give one of his "Spiky Babies" "Hoodies" or "Wall Man" models a try. Have fun, fold paper, send pictures.

Another Blogger Blog....Bloggity Blog Blog

Jaime Zollars has a wonderful blog called Paper Forest. I have had a link on my blog for ages, but I figured that I needed to plug it again because of all the wonderful stuff turning up there that may be missed. Like this wonderful pop up lotus card from Tatyana Stolyarova. Definite Masahiro Chatani influences. Simple elegance and beauty.

You can find the file for the card here. Oh, you could use some instructions? You can find the instructions here

Xin Nian Kuai Le

Happy New Year to all my friends who follow the lunar calendar. This year February 18th starts the year of the Pig. In China, the Boar ( 豬 ) is associated with fertility and virility. To bear children in the year of the pig is considered very fortunate, for they will be happy and honest.

For your creative consideration, I have a link to a wonderful card for the new year. It is made by a very talented artist named Marivi (Maria Victoria Garrido). Her work is truly wonderful, and is displayed on both her site and her daughter's site. Definitely worth a look.

Just in time for Valentine's Day

Here are a few last minute ideas for Valentine's Day from the Canon 3D Papercraft site. These will come in handy if you were stuck for ideas, lazy, or, like me, forgetful. Just remember to stop by a store on your way home tonight.

Paper Dice Tower

I found a great little paper project from the folks at Paper Make iT. A dice tower. For those of you that didn't grow up a Dungeons and Dragons geek like I did, a dice tower is a device that lets you roll multiple dice without having to chase them all over the table and floor. Sure you could use a dice cup and a box lid, but where is the artistry in that? The only thing that isn't mentioned in this project, is that you will need to have overhead transparency sheets to make the "windows" so you can watch the dice roll down. Without the transparencies, the dice will fly all over the place which is not why you built this thing in the first place. So give it a shot and tell me what you think.

The Public Has Let Me Down

I love the idea of bookcrossing.com what a wonderful concept. You read a book, you label the book as a free book, you leave the book for someone to find, and the book gets reread and passed along.

However, I released several books this past year, and none were read that I know of. The optimistic side of me says that the book was found and read, just not registered on the site. The pessimistic side of me says that they were found in the coffee shops and airports that I left them in by the cleaning people who either sent them to lost and found, or threw them out. Presently I am siding with the pessimist.

Las Vegas being not only a cultural black hole, but a largely illiterate town, I don't hold out much hope for the fate of any bookcrossing book left there. I did leave some books in Ohio as well, nothing there either. Sigh

But this is a new year! So with renewed optimism I once again join the bookcrossing masses. so get out there ladies and gents, Read-Register-Release. It's just that easy. And if you find a book crossing book, at least drop by the site and let them know you found it even if you don't plan on reading it, then pass it along.