Ear Shadow

It finally happened.

Yesterday I came up with a plan to make myself rich.

Every day, millions of people around the world apply eye shadow to their eyelids to enhance their beauty.

And yet the ears, save perhaps the addition of jewelry, are neglected.

But the ears, with their many folds and crenelations, seem designed for the application of makeup in a multitude of hues and shades to accentuate those ear-otic passages.

Imagine the delicate fossa painted an elegant mauve, which fades into a darker purple along the scapha, then transitions to a vibrant cobalt blue twisting into the antihelical fold, the antihelix, antitragus and into the ear canal itself. Perhaps the concha could be set apart in amber or emerald green.

Whatever shades best suit your aural fixation, there will be an ear shadow palette to match your look. I'll market it under the trade name Earl Shadow, or perhaps Shadow d'Earl. Of course I'll have to come up with an ad campaign to make people feel insecure about their looks first, but I have decades of Madison Avenue techniques to draw upon for that...

Happy 74th, Dad!

One of the joys of middle age is having healthy, happily retired parents, for which I'm grateful beyond measure. Sylvia and Sean and I presented Dad with a challenging Lego cargo helicopter, which should keep him busy for a while. 

Escape from the Batcan

With a little Photoshop trickery, an image I shot in Stephen's Batcan is transformed into a faux cover of Detective Comics. 

My Facebook Graffiti Archive: The Rebuttals

Here are drawings other, more talented, people posted on my Facebook wall with the Graffiti application. I can identify art by Sean, Andrea and/or Greg, and Jeff, posted by his wife Susan. My sentimental favourite is the wedding postcard, and I adore both "Who...SHAVING CREAM?!?" and the jaws laughing at my grave, but clearly Jeff's "Earl in S.T. uniform attacked by cute hamsters with blood-soaked weapons" is the most accomplished in terms of technique and irony.

Here's an idea: assuming Graffiti still works, maybe I should use it to post something on the wall of each and every one of my Facebook friends, even those I haven't met in person. Hmmm...

My Facebook Graffiti Archive

Back when I first joined Facebook, I was quite tickled by the Graffiti application. As you can see, I'm a terrible artist, but I am nonetheless pleased by the sheer depth of ineptitude displayed here. My favourite sequence runs through the middle row, starting with "NAES WAS HERE." 

The Night Sweats

They come while you sleep
While you're helpless
Liquid fear seeps up from under the bed
From out of the closet
Dark tendrils slithering
Your toes twitch
Your nostrils flare
Your eyes dart back and forth beneath lids that refuse to open
There's something in the bathroom mirror but it's not your reflection
That noise wasn't the furnace
The thing in your dreams is daring you to wake up
Because if you do
That's how they get you

On Letterboxd: The Best and Worst of Trek

It's hard to believe I haven't ranked the Star Trek films before, but I finally did so about a month ago on my Letterboxd page. Did Wrath of Khan come out on top? Is Star Trek V still the worst of the lot? Find out here. 

Images Found in a Random Folder

Saturday Night in '77

Starting a Pandemic Legacy

Surfacing: A Dramatic Reading

I've Seen C-Beams...

Over on JSVB, Jeff writes about the spiritual and ethical issues surrounding the creation of artificial beings through the lens of popular culture. A gorgeous painting of Roy Batty accompanies the essay; both are worth careful study.

Assuming I'm reading Jeff's essay and painting correctly, he's troubled by the thorny issues arising from the concept of human-created artificial intelligence and suggests that, at least in the examples he cites (the films Ex Machina and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence), such creations are immoral or at best amoral; "why do we create things we hate?" he asks.

It's a good question; as Jeff notes, most SF stories involving AI view our creations as threatening, often to the existential level. He also touches on the questions of commercialism and the act of creation itself.

Really, it's best if you read Jeff's essay rather than my weak synopsis. Personally, I found it thought-provoking enough to revisit a short story I abandoned some years ago. I hope its revision will serve as commentary on Jeff's work; watch for it coming soon. 

Chaperone Champs

I don't know if I shot this or if it was another Leduc Junior High School yearbook club member, but I'm grateful to have the shot in either case; here are my parents chaperoning the 1984 Grade 9 Farewell dance. Shot on film in glorious black and white!

Acklands from All Angles

When Sean and I went to visit Leaf Rapids in 2009, I took along Mom and Dad's old T70 and shot in both colour and black and white - on film, that is. This is the building that once housed the Acklands Dad managed, and which he and Mom, in fact stocked and opened for its grand debut in Leaf Rapids.

Here I am, surveying the building.

And here I am posing in front of it.

Sean was born in Leaf Rapids, but we left too early in his life for him to remember much of it, which is why I'm glad we went.

Sean and the door. It used to be glass, of course.

This was shot digitally, as was the next image, but this shows the building's colour (such as it is).

This image was shot on film, but in 2006, when I brought Sylvia to see the wonders of Leaf Rapids.

Here's the back of the building in 2006, which often served as my gateway to adventure those times when I wasn't in school and Mom and Dad were working. There's a steep sand dune on the other side of the Acklands, which I used as the locale for the many adventures I had with my Kenner Star Wars action figures and my die-cast Corgi Batmobile.

Here is a panorama of the sand dunes behind the Acklands building. I also remember the really great blueberries that grew wild here.

And there you have it. This may be the single most comprehensive collection of the Leaf Rapids Acklands location ever assembled.

Special bonus image! They're too small to see, but poor Sylvia was swarmed with bugs during her time in Leaf Rapids. They left me alone. I made it up to her by proposing, though!

The Wicker Spider-Man

I know I've told the story of rubber Spider-Man's sacrifice before, but I'm quite taken with this haunting photo of the festivities, taken without a flash. Bonfire of the spider-manities! 

Super Foul Mouthed

Back when I lived in the Bleak House of Blahs, I had a stand-up cardboard Superman given to me by the folks at comic store Warp One. One day Ron or Allan added a dialogue balloon with an inspirational phrase lettered across it. On another occasion, though, one of them wrote something so indecent and out of character that I was stunned senseless, as captured in this photo. I don't believe you can make out the awful text at this resolution - at least, I hope not! 

Disneyline

In 1992, the University of Alberta Star Trek Club, accompanied by the University of Alberta Scuba Club, packed into a van and drove to Disneyland. Here we are waiting in line for a ride; I don't remember which one. Nor do I remember why I looked unimpressed, because it was an amazing trip. 

Fast & Furious

I don't remember who took this photo back in 1990 - it might have been Ron, it might have been me, it might even have been a proto-selfie shot by Tony himself - but I've always loved the juxtaposition of Tony's Muppet-like wonder over Jeff's annoyed fury in the background. It's possible I'm mixing memories, but I believe we were on the way to shoot off a bunch of fireworks in the vacant lot across from Tony's apartment. The video of that event is pretty amusing...

OUTRAGEOS

"OUTRAGEOS," I responded in jest to an email from a colleague. I noticed the typo before replying, but left the mistake intact because it amused me. I'm not expecting OUTRAGEOS to catch on and become the next "pwned" or "rekt," but it's mine...the perfect expression of mock over-the-top fury. 

Blazing Earl News Logo

Way back in the mid 1990s, I produced Blazing Earl News, a silly newsletter I sent out to about a dozen friends on a very irregular schedule. In 1996 I ran a logo contest, won by Jim MacDonald. Here he is accepting his "award," bad PhotoShop and all.

And here's the logo Jim designed:

Pretty snazzy!

The Earliad exists because I really enjoyed producing Blazing Earl News, and I wanted to continue publishing nonsense for the enjoyment (?) of my friends. 

Off to Live on Mars

Thanks to Sean, I was able to experience David Bowie live, in a sense; you can read about that in this 2003 post from the early days of this blog. Today I'm doubly thankful to Sean for inviting me along, as David Bowie has, I hope, ascended to a higher plane, for it's nearly impossible to believe that he's merely dead.

While I feel knowledgeable enough to critique film and prose, I consider myself a layman when it comes to music; lacking any education or research into the field, I can only say that I know what I like and I know what moves me. "Heroes" is one of my favourite singles of all time, from any artist. "Blue Jean" takes me back to the painful but thrilling days of my adolescence. "Life on Mars" and "Space Oddity" helped cement my love of the fantastic in all its forms.

There's so much more to Bowie than his singles, of course. But his popular hits resonated with me throughout my life, as I imagine they will do as long as I'm around.

I haven't yet listened to "Lazarus," one of Bowie's last releases. Here's the video; I'm about to watch it for the first time. I imagine it's probably great.

No. 3

Ode to an African Violet

You, thou easiest of plants to foster, there with your innocent purple faces turned skyward
Green leaves reaching out for sustenance, so trusting and earnest, by experience yet unbetrayed;

For months you should enjoy the sun's kiss, forever in bloom,
Casting your cheerful glow about the room;

But yet you have no limbs, your leaves can only capture light
Just as love, it's not enough, there must be more; there must be water

And while your caretaker remembered three, four, six, a dozen, two dozen times
Eventually your novelty wore thin and his carelessness waxed

Day by day your earnest leaves drooped in sorrow
Your flowers lost their violet lustre

And saddened but wiser, you surrendered back into the soil
From which you came.

Jungle Kirk

Perhaps if arcade game manufacturer Taito had released Jungle Kirk instead of Jungle King, they wouldn't have gotten in so much trouble with Burroughs, Inc. On the other hand, I suppose Paramount probably wouldn't have been too happy... 

Captain Kirk in a Jam