This is just a quick post to let readers know that I will be posting lots of neat stories and pictures from my vacation in Italy as soon as I have time to move the pictures and also get caught up on my work. I really enjoyed the week that I spent in Tuscany. I would have liked to spend more time out in the countryside and less time in museums, but there were a lot of works of art that we had on our list of must sees. I did not take a picture of the original David by Michaelangelo. I was amused by watching scores of people blatantly disregarding the sign forbidding photography. The photo on Wikipedia is better than anything that I could produce.

If anyone is reading this and they have seen the original and also the Vegas replica, I would love to here a comparison of the two experiences.

This is the window of a decorative art shop that is in JFK Square. I prefer to enjoy exquisite decor vicariously. I was shopping for a coat rack this week because we don’t have one. I found some very nice ones that cost more than I was expecting to pay. My leather coat got a touch of mildew this summer and I want to be able to hang it somewhere with dry air.

Skin tones are pretty cool. I actually have a particular color that I always find attractive. It seems to occur in nature quite often. It’s not quite cinnamon and it’s not chestnut. I have seen some people who have this beautiful color on their faces. I have seen it on freshly roasted coffee. I have seen it in the inner bark of some trees. I guess it is a nameless brown.

This video is kinda stupid. I made it. I was at a different computer when I threw it together and I didn’t have any access to any of my own music. I am a member of The Free Sound Project, so I grabbed something appropriate from there to use as an audio track for this relatively pointless YouTube video. I just tried a few ominous search terms until I saw a synth track that was the right length and had the right tone. I think I will spend some of my free time reading up on creative commons licensing. I have to confess that I do not fully understand how to properly make use of material that has such a license.

I was wondering to myself about an impossible, time travel, alternate universe kinda situation where people like Andy Warhol and Robert Crumb have their own Cafe Press thing going on during their artistic heydays. Robert Crumbs best talking point wouldn’t exist. He created the Keep On Truckin’ graphic and lost control of its commercial use. I think the youth of the late 60s had the same range of attitudes about copyright for visual art that kids now have for music. I was astounded by how easy it was to set up a website to try to sell buttons and t-shirts and thongs. I don’t know how many thongs Warhol would have sold. Everyone is ripping off his style.

There is a piece of garbage that I very much want to bring home with me to incorporate into a piece of art. I cannot bring myself to pick it up because it is lying in a vacant lot beside a busy parking lot. I am afraid that I will be seen by my accountant or the police or that guy that always talks to me.

The object is actually just around the corner from a shop filled with decorative art and furnishings. I am talking about cherubs and gilded naked lady lamps. I think I might just kick the object over and take a digital photograph. I can then use the magic of MS paint to make an unreasonable facsimile of what I had planned to do.

I was waiting outside the home of my son’s tutor the other day with nothing much to do. It was raining. I had planned to get my hair cut while he was having his lesson, but the shop was unexpectedly closed.

I was bored. I had accidentally broken the speaker wires with our boogie board late this summer. I found a pencil and a scrap of paper, but I had no flat surface to write on. I decided to do a rubbing of the emblem on my steering wheel. Tonight I was wondering if there were any virtual rubbing applications online. That is how I discovered the virtual rubbing section of VietnamWall.org. It’s not as much fun as I thought it would be.

We were talking about old Canadian pop bands at work today and I suddenly remembered The Box. There are not many YouTube videos of The Box. They were hugely popular in Quebec, but only had one brief moment of national supremacy in the mid 80’s when music video was a burgeoning artform. This video is not representative of their musical output. Their English language releases were more cerebral than many breakout albums by artists who speak English as a second language.

This painting is famous. I think today may be the first time that I ever saw a photograph of this painting. I don’t think North Americans get enough art history during their secondary education.

Maybe it’s not as important as calculus. Maybe it is.

I just wasted about a half an hour trying to find the name of an actress that I remember from television that looked like this girl back in the 80’s. I thought she has been in a series with Jan Rubes playing her grandfather. He is one of my favorite character actors. He was the Amish guy in Witness.