conversation/Rainbow Waters of China

V. Oooh, how mysterious. I suppose it's something for hauling stone? Out of a quarry? But wait! What is that long hose thing that's being held up by three little beige benches!? Mysteries abound!

J. I think it's a run off from the plant into the hole. But I'm not really sure, I didn't get any closer to the water it was creepy.

V. Yeah, looks kind of creepy and maybe dangerous to go out too close to the edge there.

J. The water was all frosty and glazed over but some times the color was a little odd. It was quiet like something might come bursting out of it and gobble you up.

V. Oh hoho. I know what you mean... That suspicious color that looks a little too chemical... might harbor some radioactive beastie with glowing tentacles...!

J. Yeah, exactly that odd color. Like the bright green lakes in the middle of nowhere... I'll have to stop and take pictures the next time I see one of those. I think the home owners have made made lakes and add chemicals to them to keep the algae from growing. They are the oddest color.

V. Yeah, I think they have lots of those in Florida! Reminds me of a news snippet I saw about blue water pollution in China from blue-jeans factories... Hmmm...

J. Is the water the same color from the pollution or does it just tie in?

V. ust ties in, I guess. The water turns blue, like jeans...

J. And then when you start getting into colored jeans you get some really interesting stuff.

V. Mmm, yes... The "rainbow waters" of China. We could make a whole tourist trade out of it.

J. Ahahha, the new eight wonder of the word. Go for a swim and you might find yourself cured and able to walk again or you might find that you have a few extra feet and three legs instead of two. It's a gamble and so many people would go for it.

This conversation was conducted on DeviantArt between my friend vanilla-vanilla and myself krazysidhe. For it and other conversations feel free to hunt around, we hope you’ve enjoyed today’s installment.

conversation/The Ranks of the Ghost Squirrels

V. Squirrel? Looks like ghost of squirrel past.

J. Ah you know how those ghostly squirrels are, they just never got away and they are always chattering but you can't quiet hear them. So most people dismiss the noise as nothing but really... it's the ghosts of all those squirrels that get run over every year, they come back with a vengeance. But unfortunately their imaginary nuts, just really don't have much impact on the people or the cars that they throw them at. Thus you end up with a lot of frustrated vengeful squirrels. Eventually they get rather tired of running around neighborhoods and play chicken with the cars that killed them in the first place--after all dead ghostly squirrels really aren't that much smarter then living squirrels--they migrate slowly into the more wooded areas. They live in communes together in the forests and eventually one by one they fade. However, there is always more of them to replace the others--rather like the rabbits. After all they breed like bunnies there are always more of them... living or dead!

V. Oho, this is why there always seem to be more and more squirrels everywhere! Like my back yard, where they keep forgetting where they buried the nuts, so they have to look everywhere... Maybe you'll run across a squirrel commune when you have your camera. After you take that picture of new batteries.

J. Ah but did you know the real reason that they forgot where their nuts where? That's because all of the ghost squirrels, confuse the living squirrels so much that they can't find their nuts. Because the dead ones know where they are but they are so frustrated that they can't eat the nuts--they can't even dig them up poor things. That they usually decide that if they can't have the nuts then those who can actually eat them sure as hell aren't getting a hold of any nuts.

V. Oh! I saw one yesterday afternoon. I was driving, and this tiny little juvenile squirrel darted into the middle of a busy street, then sat looking wildly about and turning in circles as cars zoomed in all directions, and ghost squirrels tried to pummel it with nuts...

J. Poor little squirrel, he so did not know what hit him. I can just hear all of the ghost squirrels cackling from the side walks. Because after they're dead they are much smarter and quiet a bit nastier. At least most of them. I'm sure somewhere there is the few lonely little ghost squirrels who try and do good but their voices aren't heard over the chatter of the others.

The second photograph has been edited by vanilla-vanilla. This conversation was carried out via DeviantArt, by my friend vanilla-vanilla and myself. Feel free to browse around this conversation and for others which may or may not appear here at a future date. I hope your day/evening is a good one.

conversation/The Pine Tree Guru's and Urban Foraging

V. Something nice and "crispy" about this picture, too. Hair of the beast that ate most of the thing that now lies beneath the snow?

J. Ah but you see, it's vestiges of the weeds from the back of the creek monsters. In the snow and the ice he can make it just that far away from the creek. However, what he didn't realize is that he sluffed off some of his concealing creek weed on the fence along the way.
Or perhaps it's simply the little creatures who live in fences. They snuck down to the creak in the brightest light of the day--for that's what creek monsters are slowest of course at least in winter--and carefully plucked creek weed from the back of the creek monster so as to frame him for that which lies beneath the snow. However, little do they know what all that lies beneath the snow is dead grass and nothing at all incriminating. So, instead of framing the creek monsters as they wish, because he enjoys snacking on the little creatures who live in fences when he can't get hiker.

V. Ah, your folklore is getting richer, now populated with more little creatures... with ulterior motives!

J. Conflicting interests. But the poor little guys who live in the fence really must talk to the air headed creatures who live in the pine trees. You know sniffing those pine fumes all day, that's really the best way to figure out what it's all about.

V. !! I love it. Wow... Pine fumes. Hmm, reminds me of teenage years... Hmmm. I feel a picture coming on...

J. Climbing pine trees and getting the sap stuck all over your hands and never being able to get it off. Though it did smell rather nice.

V. Ah, haven't done that for years. Near where I lived as a kid was a row of 5 or 6 enormous fir trees and we'd often climb into them, way up near the top, where you sway back and forth in the wind. Sometimes pretty scary; great views.

J. Yeah, pine trees can be great. I used to climb mango trees over seas, they had a similar sappy problem. But when left they could get ginormous, and made the best climbing trees. Sometimes on the biggest ones we couldn't get up the trucks so we'd pull down the lower branches and climb up them. Mango's aren't overly strong but they bend quiet a lot before they break.

V. Oh, now I have to find a mango tree to climb!

J. You really should. Though I'm not sure how much luck you will have finding one in this country.

V. Yeah, I don't think I've seen one, but maybe in Hawaii...

J. I think you would in Hawaii, though I can't remember seeing one when I was there. That would be closer to the right climate though. Maybe it's like most fruit trees they don't tend to grow them in the cities or populated area's because of the fruit mess. I haven't been much outside of Honolulu, in a while.

V. Heheh, yes, the fruit mess. People around the neighborhood here tend to have orange and lemon and olive trees, and then instead of eating the fruit, they let it rain down and rot on the ground... I had an apricot tree that died a few years back, but when it fruited, it gave the best apricots in the whole wide world.

J. Yeah, I never understood the idea of having a fruit tree and not at least eating or using some of it. I know a number of people around here who have apple trees and they do that. We had a neighbor who had one and we'd made tones of apple sauce every year because she didn't want the apples. I can understand having more then you can use yourself but to just let it all sit there.

V. I also have an apple tree, in front by the driveway. The fruit isn't very good really, and we only eat a few each year... But not because it falls and rots. It never gets as far as falling or rotting. People come by in the middle of the night and steal it! Once last summer, I woke up in the middle of the night to some sound out front, and when I cracked the blinds to look, it was interesting. For half an hour I watched a woman with a flashlight going around the tree, picking apples and stuffing them into a bag. When it was full, she departed. Another time in the dead of night, I saw a family of people stop their car, all jump out, pick a bunch of apples, then pile back in and drive off. Jeez-o. If they really need the apples, they're welcome to them!

J. Urban foraging. There is a map floating around of this city and where the fruit trees and berry buses are in town. Someone on one of the groups I'm on was complaining about urban foraging, that because of the amount of it, people aren't leaving anything for the local wild life to eat.

V. Wow. I feel like a total dolt! It never even occurred to me. I guess it goes on here, too: [link] I guess my "old home town" Berkeley is a hot-bed of this activity. Who knew? Ha ha, maybe this is why all the 'possums have disappeared. But the squirrels and crows seem to do well here with all the oranges. The back fence is always littered with orange peels dropped by plump squirrels who eat the innards and leave the husk.

J. *chuckles* It's rather interesting. For instance I wouldn't have thought about all of the smaller urban animals that rely on that as a food source. I was reading a conversation going on between some of the members of the local Permaculture group (email), [link] [link]

The second photograph has been edited by vanilla-vanilla. This conversation was carried out via DeviantArt, by my friend vanilla-vanilla and myself. Feel free to browse around this conversation and for others which may or may not appear here at a future date. I hope your day/evening is a good one.

conversation/ Hatch

Image Note: So, I couldn't resist. I found this on my campus walk and well... It really rather does look like an Alien Egg, sitting on a stump just waiting to be hatched.


V. Wow! What a wonderful surprise it will be when it hatches! (Or maybe we don't want to be hanging around?)

J. *sits on the ground in front of it and starts changing* Hatch, Hatch, Hatch, Hatch, Hatch, Hatch...

V. Yes, chant hard... But don't sit too close!

J. I think I shall beat my hands on my knees and make faces at it.

V. Oh! In my crystal ball, I see... an indie film. The Dangerous Pastimes of Weavers... Make sure it doesn't have a mother lurking in the trees.

J. With numerous musical numbers and really bad subtitles as of course the whole thing is in French.

V. Ah, lovely. Sounds like my kind of film, sort of...

J. It has potential but will it be realized or not? That remains to be seen.

V. Maybe someday a movie poster might be made, though...

J. What comes to mind is old school cover art for books or pulp fiction magazines. ^^:

This conversation was carried out via DeviantArt, by my friend vanilla-vanilla and myself. Feel free to browse around this conversation and for others which may or may not appear here at a future date. I hope your day/evening is a good one.

conversation/What Students Are Drinking

Image Note: Recycling bin at school for drink cans and bottles. Among other things... apparently.

V. Ha hah... What!? Hey, dudes, who's drinking the hydrogen peroxide!

J. Hahaha, that's what I wanted to know. Along with all the alcohol on campus? Though that probably came from an opening event at the gallery down stairs, it still amused me.

V. Mmm, yes. The new martini? 2 oz gin, 1 oz vermouth and a splash of hydrogen peroxide?

J. It's quiet nice, I had one the other night. It has a wonderfully fizzy after taste that kind of lingers in your mouth like rabies. I was quiet sure that Mr. I.P. Freely over there was going to kill over the first time his date started foaming at the mouth, it was really quiet impressive.

V. Wow! "lingers in your mouth like rabies" OK, whew. I had to cover my mouth to keep from spewing tea all over the monitor...

J. *evil grins* I must admit I was rather proud of myself when that line came out. It just worked wonderfully. Just don't ruin your monitor that would be rather sad.

V. Yup, it was a great moment. Almost makes me wish I had been too slow with the hand-mouth coordination so I could have taken a picture of the spewage to post.

J. That would rather be funny in a sad kind of why, I must admit I was drinking coffee when I read that... tough, luckily I didn't get so bad.

V. Yes!

This conversation was conducted on DeviantArt between my friend vanilla-vanilla and myself krazysidhe. For it and other conversations feel free to hunt around, we hope you've enjoyed today's installment.

conversations/ABCD Soup

V. Nice branches... Poor tree!

J. Makes a nice image against the snow though.

V. It does make a good image. Hope the bigger trunk part has some branches, too...

J. I think it's probably dead, poor little thing. That was all of it there was. It's one of those smaller trees in a fairly dense canopied area, that probably will not make it to maturity because it hast to fight too hard to reach up high enough to get to the sunlight through all of the other trees.

V. Too bad, but, it happens...

J. It does and that is why we have cannibalistic trees because they feed off the decaying bodies of the young that have been spawned by themselves and their neighbors... Now there is an interesting theory for how we might cut down on over population. Follow natures example...

V. Ah, yes. It would work very well... Following natures, example, Jonathan Swift, "A Modest Proposal". Scroll down for example to: A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

J. *chuckles* It has possibilities, though I suppose most would resort to cats and dogs first. Mmm Swift, I haven't had to delve into that in a long while.

V. Mmm, we could make a 3-meat stew! I'll bet that would sell.

J. Soup of the day ABCD!
A Baby, Cat and Dog Soup.
Just $2.99 A Bowl.

V. Wow! A bowl of 3-meat soup for under $3! Yay!

J. I know. That's what you get when you use cat and dog, though I suppose baby might up the price some...

V. !! Yes! Maybe that's why it's not $2.95...

J. Yes, those special four pennies added onto the end. Little do people know that they are actually the very secret intermediate that adds magic to our soup. We very carefully take those last four penny's and we add them to the tithe that we pay to hell. The one that allows us to add little baby's and defenseless animals to our soup without fearing four our souls. Instead we just put everyone else in jeopardy but FEEDING it to you. Mwahahaha!

V. Oh, wow! I'm seriously laughing all over... I love it! :rose: (Hmm, maybe someday 3-meat soup will appear in a deviation... "For only four cents, we throw in the baby, and you can take the bath-water home!")

J. It's guaranteed to cure all manor of allurements from the common cold to crabs and maybe even aids. Would you like to try some bath water now? Just remember you can not guarantee that your soul will survive in one piece.

V. Ah, yes...

This conversation in all it's glory and others took place over here, between vanilla-vanilla and myself. It has not in any way been edited for grammar or content but left as it originally appeared.

Above the Creak Monster

V. You know it's lurking there, ready to grab any stray boots!

J. MUNCH!

V. Aaaagh! My $200 dollar boot! [dives in to retrieve the expensive snack...]

J. Do you make an even more expensive snack? How does your life compare in value to the half of a pair of $200 dollar boots?

V. Ah, OK, it took a couple of days to do the tally, and the verdict is... The boots are the most expensive part!

J. I don't know i would think that the feet are rather more irreplaceable then the boots.

V. Turns out, however, that I have magical feet that keep growing back after being chewed off. Only they always grow back in pairs, so I always have an odd number of feet. This week it's 7. I suppose I could even them out by having two chewed off at once, but that would still be odd.

J. Hahahah! Next time you should try and hand and see what happens with that. You may magically end up with an extra pair of helping hands for the trouble.

V. Ooh! Yes, then I'd have 7 feet and 4 hands, which would be a trifle odd...

J. Aye, it would be rather odd; however, it could be mighty useful as well, or they might just get in the way... I wonder if you could roll around on seven feet instead of walking. You'd probably end up going in circles and looking like a deformed clown balloon.


V. Wow! I'd almost like to try that, but people might be a little hesitant to approach me...

J. Ah but they would be so shocked and amazed by what you can do that their mouths would drop open all the way to the ground and their eyes would get big and round like dinner plates. Then you could roll up to them and go 'Boo' in a very small voice and they would fall over backwards. Thus you could approach them because they'd be in awe and unable to run away.

V. That would be quite a social advantage!

J. Not to mention always having a helping hand when you need it.

V. And helping feet, too. I would be a one-man dance team. Play two pipe organs at once.

J. You'd be a really great tap dancer and just imagine what you could do to the piano. I saw a duet one time that was two guys playing the piano at once, that was really neat.

V. Oh, yeah! Wow, I'd be like Fred Astaire, squared! Oh, and the piano... I'd be able to play all of the Schubert "piano, four hands" literature on my own... [Not sure if you know, but there's a whole genre of piano music for two people at one piano; it was popular in the days when people had pianos in their parlors and everyone knew how to play, so married couples and sweethearts often played such pieces, I think...]

J. I actually didn't know anything about that. But, I found that there was something very moving about watching two people playing together. There was something beautiful about it, even more then the dance piece that was going on--which wasn't overly inspiring.

 This conversation in it's entirety took place here and was conducted by vanilla-vanilla and myself along with a number of others that may eventually find their way here.

Furniture Sex and Fungi

V. A giant comb, and... Ooh, wait! What's that!? One ultra-rare photograph of picnic tables mating... :-) Wow, do they allow this stuff on DA?

J. I don't know. I think might have to put up a mature content warning on this one. I hadn't thought of that until you said something. Amazing, I captured that moment without seeing the obvious... I wonder how big we can blow up the image, print it and plaster it around campus. Everyone will be totally amazed! They won't know what hit them. Heheheheheh!

V. Great idea! Won't the faculty be surprised...

J. Unfortunately, I'm afraid we might have to include diagrams to that people truly understand what is going on. Other wise they just might miss the awesomeness of the moment and that would really be sad.


V. Ah, yes, must include the detailed, educational diagrams without which any discussion of other-species mating rituals is so incomplete.

J. People get so bogged down in the details that they can not truly comprehend... after all most do still firmly believe that such objects are inanimate and thus incapable of such actions. That, I know a great many people when faced with such a truth have not been able to handle it.

V. But now, with your photos and diagrams, and the video out there on the net, they'll just have to believe! It'll open a whole new world.

J. And then no one will ever believe that I managed to do anything else with my life in the future. Because all they will remember is mating pick nick tables.

V. Oh, yes! You do not want to be one of those authors/artists who do one really big thing and then everyone forgets that they ever did anything else. Like Carl Orff. J.D. Salinger. Harper Lee. Pachelbel... ;-) So, I agree. Better to bury the mating tables, and let someone "discover" it after you're gone. Then people will say, "Wow, that J did all of that and this fabulous undiscovered work, too!"

J. Of course then there is the risk that they will somehow try and name this variety of mating pick nick tables after you and that can be a rather scary thought as well.

V. ! :lmao: Oh, yeah! But that could be lovely, couldn't it? Doesn't every woman want to have a species named after her? ;-) (Hmm, OK, you have to wonder about guys who name gross little parasitic worms after their wives and stuff... I mean, a species of flower is one thing, but.)

J. "Honey, I'm home."
Kiss, kiss, "Welcome home, sweatheart. What did you do today?"
"Well... I got a surprise."
"Oh, what is it?"
"Here," Hands a photo.
"Mmmm... and what is this little wormy thing?" Tries to sound polite and interested.
"That my dear, is the new species I named after you today. Isn't it great," Pulls out a wad of papers from his pocket, "See, I have a certificate of authenticity and everything. You my lovely are looking at the new form of fungus, the Mildred. Or as I call her Milly for short."
Btw, on a side note these things are cool [link].

V. Yes! Exactly! The next frame is where she beans him with a frying pan! "Is that all I mean to you?" :crying: "Frank's wife got a new rodent named after her..."
And those fungi! Ooh, they look so incredibly ALIEN! Wow! And to think some of them are only
down the road from Santa Banana. I might be able to see some in real life.

J. Poor Bob, he just couldn't do much to please Mildred... besides it would've served her right to have a rodent named after her. Frank's wife was much to pretty to be named after a rodent but ahhh a fungi. She would make a beautiful one.
I know aren't they.

V. LOL, she would make a beautiful fungus...!

J. Fungi just have so much more class then those stinky pooping and eating little rodents.

V. LOL...!

This conversation in it's entirety took place over here, and it was conducted between vanilla-vanilla and myself.

Bob the Brownie Alien From Outer Space

V. Strange... What is it?

J. It's a little brownie house. Or perhaps it's the little alien's from outer space that just wanted to be left alone. So they came to earth and made themselves a little tiny house out in the middle of no where so that it could be left alone.

V. Very cool. Maybe you can hang around and try to get a photo of the little guys... Probably best not to poke 'em with sticks though... ;-)

J. Yeah they aren't very nice when they get mad. Their jaws elongate and then they have teeth that seem to come out of nowhere and they go ONOMNOMNOM!

V. But all those teeth do have their good points...

J. Aye true, they are very good for munching up limestone rock to get the minerals he's needs and for scaring off annoying woodpeckers that come to bother him. However, at least woodpeckers are as insistent as alien sales men are; all you have to do is show them a little teeth and they don't come back again.

V. I can see him now, baring teeth at the poor woodpeckers!

J. Oh yes, and if the woodpeckers aren't fast enough... well they are at least a mouth full. However he doesn't like the feathers because they get stuck in his teeth and it takes forever to gather each one of them up to bury. Because he can't just go around leaving mounds of feathers all over the place, people would start to wonder and being a recluse he'd rather not draw attention to himself. Besides he's much more a vegetarian most of the time--except when things piss him off and then he forgets how much he hates feathers in his teeth--but his favorite food is pond scum or river weed. It's nice an ripe.

V. Oh, I like this! I think you just about have yourself a once-upon-a-time story going here!

J. *grinz* I'm rather enjoying this. Now he just needs a name, something rather absurd but fun at the same time...

V. Yes, I'm sure you'll come up with a fun name. You're keeping track of all this, right? Maybe you have a smash hit in the making.

J. Lol yeah, keeping track of the comments. Lol not sure what to do with it yet but it's there. *chuckles*

V. Oh, good. Someday it'll all gel and you'll have something fine.

J. lol eventually the pygmy alien and the creak monster will meet and have beautiful children...

V. Oh, I can't wait to see 'em. Maybe I'll have to try drawing one. Oooh, a family tree...

J. Hahha... Would that be a pygmy creak monster? The one that fits in the little creak-lings and thus makes no place on earth truly safe from the creak monsters?

V. Yes! Pygmy creek monster!! LOL...

J. It runs around--because being part pygmy alien it can walk on land at least for a little while--trying to eat birds. Because it has decided that it like it's farther prefers bird to human; however, it's mouth is so small that it can not eat a whole bird.

The actual form of this conversation can be found here and was conducted by vanilla-vanilla, and myself.

Teleporting and Nose Wiggling

V. The only problem with both of these concerts was the one-hour drive on either end of each concert so, all in all, it was not a very green weekend, and I feel guilty about that, so I'll probably stay around Santa Banana for a while, holding in my carbon emissions.

J. We really must perfect the teleportation device. Or strengthen our minds enough that we can do it with a Ooommm, a blink of the eye and a wiggle of our noses. ^_~

V. Yes! Teleportation! Knowing our universe, however, it would probably be more polluting than oil. Nose-wiggling, however, is probably entropically neutral, so to speak...

J. Physic pollution, everyone popping in and out here and there, falling on top of each other, exploding into each other in mid air. It would be a chaotic mess! And all that nose wiggling, man... people would start developing little twitches and itches that they couldn't control until their noses would start wiggling on their own. Then you'd have people who would start popping in and out of their houses at night while they slept because of their facial twitches. Though I suppose people popping themselves into oblivion is one way to deal with over population.


V. OMG! That really gave me a laugh. Wow, I guess people don't think about how chaotic it would be. Thanks for warning me before I hit the switch to turn on nose-wiggling in your universe!

J. *grins* I guess we'll just have to settle from some other--probably less entertaining--form of chaos.

The entirety of this conversation can be found here, and was carried on by vanilla-vanilla, and myself.

Crisco and the Combs

Ice Walk 3, 2, 2010 by *krazysidhe on deviantART

V. This is pretty cute. Hmmm...

J. It was really random is what it was. *chuckles*

V. Crisco at work. Look for combs popping up everywhere!

J. Hahhaa.... Only he's not working to scale yet. He's got a bigger one here [link] but he failed in his placement and rather got it too far into the ground so that no one can tell what it is. I'm sure if we keep looking we can find many other examples of his great 'Comb' experiment. ;)

V. !!! LOL Yes! I totally missed that one. I bow to your superior powers of obsertation!

J. Now, on that note see how many examples of something that might be an artistic version of a comb you can spot in the next couple of days. I bet there are quite a few of them out there, once you start looking for them. After all we humans have a fondness for straight lines and so it was quiet easy for Crisco to slip his subversive comb's into our midst's without us noticing it for after all he does have a sense of humor sometimes. It is quiet fun to see just what you can get away with without the indigenous population notice.


V. If I only got out and about more! I'm notoriously shut in because, believe it or not, I work from home. But I'll keep my eyes open for combs in the environment and send a report.

J. Hmmm perhaps Crisco has been at work in the home as well as in the wider world... Oh well, I keep forgetting to look when I'm out and about so I can't say a whole lot.

This conversation can be found in it's actual format here, and was conducted by myself and my friend vanilla-vanilla. Stay tuned for more such inanity in the future, some butter and some probably worse. :)

Alien Antenna

Anteni 2, 2010 by *krazysidhe on deviantART

V. I know you posted this antenna series a while ago and I've looked at 'em several times. I guess they're moss of some type? Anyway, they look really cute and fun and vigorous, all jumping up in the sun through that snow.

J. Yeah I posted those a while ago. There was something wonderful about that rock just sitting there next to the path, mostly unnoticed and then you look closer...

V. Yeah, they're really amazing little things...

J. Yeah. Something amazing about this tiny delicate little thing growing out of the snow, just pop. Hi! Hello! Yep, here I am! And I'm not leaving. At least not right away.

V. [cure eerie music] Not leaving until I've covered the earth with my alien spores and invaded every pore of every creature. Mwa ha ha...

J. *giggles* And I must look fabulous while doing so.

V. Oooh! I feel another marvelously huge Crisco project coming on... ;-)

J. You know that Crisco he's never still. ;) Always planning or doing something monstrous.

This conversation can be found here, and was conducted by vanilla-vanilla and myself krazysidhe.

Dreams and Forgotten Ideas

Paleontology Bumper Sticker by =vanilla-vanilla on deviantART

This conversation took place in response to the linked image above. This work is not mine by belongs to my friend Vanilla-Vanilla.

J. I do so love dreams most of the time. *chuckles*

V. Dreams are great fun! Well, mostly.

J. lol mostly dreams are great even those that are scary can be interesting in their own right. What scares you other then the obvious? I had a friend who dreamed about a raccoon chasing her around with a gun and one of the worst dreams I ever had was about giant flesh eating grasshoppers...

V. When I have nightmares, which isn't often, they seem to involve just general spookiness, and sometimes werewolves. (I hate werewolves, and horror films in general anyway.) The other scary thing is sensations of inability to move, being "tied down" and/or squished.

J. I had a waking dream one time where I was asleep and I couldn't move but I was in my room and I could hear people outside. That really freaked me out.
Mostly it's the unknown, something in the dark. Something I term a 'monster' but I don't usually see it. I simply know what it is that it's there.


V. Yeah, the "can't move" sensation is a weird one. The Japanese call it "kanashibari". I actually have the feeling of being squished and paralyzed sometimes, often associated with bad dreams, and wake up making weird noises. Hmm. Not a good topic before bed-time!

J. Wow, that's really fascinating [link] and there are stories from all around the world as well. There is something in that. I shall sit on that and put it in my ideas folder for now.

V. Ah, good. In the ideas folder, where it will lurk, ready to pounce at a later date.

J. Or be forgotten. I have some random things in there. I have gone back through it on occasion.

V. Ah, right, the folder of forgotten fantasies..

J. Brilliant title, for something. But yeah something like that. Though It end to have the Note book of Forgotten Fantasies, which just doesn't have the same ring.... how about FlipBook of Forgotten Fantasies?

V. Mm, the flipbook of forgotten fantasies. OK. Sounds interesting.

J. Could be a fun visual as opposed to something you're actually meant to read. With the flipbook being often a momentary diversion to look at for a short time set aside and usually forget about.

Orange Dots and Alien Artists

Artist's Comments
So, a while back I posted a journal entry about train tracks and why they seem to fascinate so many people. Well there are lots of train tracks around the place but I admit I've never paid them much attention. I decide every so often I'm going to take a walk along a different stretch of the tracks and see what I find. To get out of the studio and do something different yesterday I walked along a stretch of tracks near campus.

Here's one thing that jumped out at me, bright orange dots. ;)


V. These are fun! It looks like 7 or 8 different locations... Hmmm.

J. Yeah I enjoyed it. Same tracks just different spots along it. I don't know if it was someone having fun or someone marking something.

V. It would be nice to think it had something to do with Morse code for aliens or an art project by a devotee of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but it's more likely to be railway folks marking ties that need to be replaced... ?

J. *chuckles* Well it's not really on their scale at least the stuff of theirs that I know. Though that would be interesting and I suppose in some way it could be a massive scale. I think I'll vote for alien code, I like that answer. ;) Or maybe it's the squirrel's, it must be the squirrel's fault.
Yeah, I wondered about the replaced ties, though most of them didn't look any worse then any of the others at least as far as my uneducated eyes could tell.

V. Hi! My name's Crisco. I'm an installation aahrtist from Alpha Centauri. Last week I painted each railway tie with a bright orange dot from Bellingham WA to IN. I usually work bigger, but I've been a little sick. You should see what I did in 1054. Oh, wait, I guess you can see it. One of my finest "plasma balloons"...

J. LOL. That just made my morning. *giggles*
So, Crisco while you're here can I ask you a few questions?
Are you here to take over the world with art? Or is the whole alien domination and take over thing rather over done?

V. Oh, dahling, we don't just take over worlds. Our motto: "We'll annihilate anything for Art." Nothing gets your blood pumping in the morning like a supernova. And, as Joan-Clod says, "lasts longer than a box of radioactive Sharpies."

J. Hmmm... I see. Well then let me pose one of the fundamental questions to you, what is art? I've always been under the impression that supernova's and such were naturally occurring. If you consider the creation of one art; what is heart to you and your people beyond the limitations of Earth?

V. Ah, Ah. As I, Crisco, have written elsewhere in one of my many books available through Rip-Em-Right-Off-Press: Art is {all the stuff you draw/make/write/sculpt/sing/weave while you're trying to become an Artist} minus all the bits involving feces. And the latter is sometimes negotiable, as you demonstrated brilliantly: link.  For example, the Trooblinquat Bemquine tribe of Beta Centauri IV produce very interesting and colorful fecal sculpture hundreds of meters tall and it has been hoity-toity art among them for 10,000 or so Earth years. And supernovae are far from naturally occurring, Grasshopper. You really have to work at one. They take several billion Earth years to actually bloom.

J. Well, then you must've perfected the art of longevity as it seems we short lived humans have missed out on much.
(You know perhaps it's not so much about what artists make it's about the fact that they make it and they present it as art. So it comes down to the presentation such as Duchamp's Fountain. Or for example fecal sculptures; are made and presented as art and thus become art over time because they have been presented that way. We become defined by what people previously have declared as art. Lol as a side note this came up in my search for the above as a picture from Burning Man. lol or link.)

V. Yes, humans do miss out on much with your short lifespans. Someday perhaps you'll live long enough to see some of the art that other species have been making all around the galaxy for eons... :-)
(Ah, Duchamp's fountain. I never learned whether he made the fountain or just presented it. I'd have to argue, personally, that if he didn't make it, it isn't art, no matter how he presents it. In some sense it trivializes the creative act to simply take an object and present it unadorned. This separates goats from Goats dressed in tires and paint [link] a la Rauschenberg. Yes, it's also true that we become defined by what people previously have declared as art as you say. Burning Man. Ah, never been to it, but I keep hearing about it year after year...)

J. So, then you have not uncovered the secret of ever last life? You are simply blessed with long life spans?
(He simply presented it as art. I don't really care for him or the idea or the Dada movement; however, the observation I think stands. Simply in terms of what we present as art then can become viewed as art. So it's those who present things who begin to define what art is. Which doesn't persay answer the question but it is an element of some sort in the whole mess.
Hahha poor goat.
Yeah I haven't been to Burning Man though I to keep hearing about it. It would be neat to go.)

V. The secret of everlasting life? Don't die. Very simple. The trick is living through the next "big fizzle" or "big collapse" and through the "big bang" that follows it on the other side. :-)
Anyway... Dada can be fun in some ways, but it was mostly similar to what young people were doing in the 60s: doing whatever it takes to annoy the establishment. :-)

J. *chuckles* Well in terms of art, and just people in general there will always be some element of that. Annoying the establishment, doing what they think is, 'shocking', but may or may not be anything that's really new.

V. Exactly. It's mostly been done in one form or another through the ages, somewhere on Earth.

This conversation can be found here and was carried on by myself and vanilla-vanilla.

The Ribs

V. Interesting photo, and also interesting subject matter. I like the amusing comment on the lower ribs. Hmm.

J. Yeah, that was what caught our attention. The lower rib thing.

V. Yes, rather wild and interesting. Strange ideas those ancients had...

J. *chuckles* It always makes me wonder what people a hundred years or so from now will say about us.

V. Right. I think, if they're around, they'll have some rather awful things to say about us, but those comments will probably be censored by the corporate screwballs who control the media and the supreme court. Heh heh.
But the question always reminds me of that scene in Woody Allen's "Sleeper" where he wakes up in the future and the doctor is smoking ciggies like a chimney, telling him "we used to think smoking was bad for you, now we know it's healthy"... :-)

J. *chuckles* It's one of those eternal questions that has no answer and yet still we wonder. I think I shall invent a time traveling pair of moon shoes.

V. Ooh! When you do, stop by and pick me up... :-)

J. I shall make two pairs and we can pretend to be skipping down the yellow brick road in moon shoes, skipping through time... never knowing what we will find. Perhaps it will be the emerald city and perhaps it will be a fuzzy caterpillar smoking hookah or maybe it will be a pygmy alien with a taste for birds and a preference for creak monsters.

V. :laughing: Oh, yes. That sounds like so much fun!!

Original conversation can be found here, the images were taken as part of a collection visit that was set up as part of a class.

Krazy Conversations

V: Nice... It looks very soft and inviting. Maybe go for a swim...

J: It's warmer in here, come and jump in you know that you want to. That's the water monster whispering to you, telling you that you really do want to go for a swim. And he wants a snack. :)

V: Probably wants to nibble my toes...!

J: AH but the problem with a nibble, is that creak water monsters are deceptive. The creak might not be very deep but they are really very big and long because they smoosh down and spread out. So that in the end a nibble for water monster is actually very large bite for you and me.

V: You mean big like no more toes? or off at the knees? ;-)

J: Rather somewhere in the middle I think. Rather like off at the ankle but you might not realize it right away because he has very sharp teeth. So, you'd probably be trying to walk away and fall over flat on your face because you don't have foot that you thought was there, only it wasn't really there... And then maybe all of you would fall through the ice if you fall hard enough and that's when he gets those nice big meals that keep him fed throughout the year.

V: OK, I'll keep the tootsies out of the water! :-)

J: Just dabble them in the edge while you lean over and put the boot in the deeper water. Then you can get your feet wet and not get your toes munched off--though I can't guarantee your creak monster won't have bigger teeth and take off your whole arm--and it will be all good. Save for the walking back to the car or trail head without two boots, which could prove problematic depending on what type of trail it is.

V: :laughing: Yes, I can see myself limping back down the trail with one boot and one arm...
:-)

This conversation and others can be found on my gallery, Krazysidhe or on V's, Vanilla-Vanilla