p.s. - i like audubon, but i dislike dali.

here are tiny (about one inch tall) figurines made of sculpey. i made the temminck’s tragopan and pathetic seal, and carrie made the guinea fowl and capybara.

many months ago, i reviewed spartacus: blood and sand. the show was upsetting to me because it was incredibly noisy and bursting with nude and oily men. but i believe in second chances, so i decided to watch spartacus: gods of the arena. i hoped with my gentle heart that this prequel would have a more soothing quality. i hoped the gods of the arena would be aphrodite of love, demeter of the harvest, hestia of the hearth, and thor, the god of thunder hammers. but five minutes into the show, my hope died. because i saw the gods of the arena were not even gods… they were just more nude and oily men! again, they were being boisterous (on purpose) and solving their problems with violence instead of peer mediation. even when they whispered secrets, their whispers were almost shouts and seemed so threatening that i felt panicky and scared. why? why does it have to be this way?

but the worst part was, when i watched this show, i couldn’t understand the story. i couldn’t concentrate on the plot because i couldn’t stop thinking about how much the main character looks like an angry bird…

:*(

i am watching insidious as i make this post. at first i thought it would be a realistic, subtle, thoughtful film since it is about withered ghouls trying to possess the body of an astral projecting coma patient. but then i reached the cut following an argument between the husband and wife: suddenly, the wife’s asleep in bed as the husband astral projects from the couch. this is an unbelievable AND unacceptable scenario. i’ve learned from cinema that husbands MUST sleep on couches after domestic disputes, but if i were living in a haunted house, i would not banish my husband to the couch just because i feel revengeful. that would not be a smart way of maximizing a husband’s usefulness. this is how it should ideally play out:

after our fight, i would say in my gentlest voice, “forgive me, my husband, you are so rational and masculine,” and i would beg him to sleep on top of me instead of on top of the couch. but in my heart i would not forgive him, and i would secretly be using his sleeping body as a meat shield against ghosts. if he survived, i would grudgingly love (or just “like-like”) him for protecting me. if he died, i would cry, of course. then i would realize that he wouldn’t want me to suffer. i would gaze at my tear-streaked visage in the mirror and tell myself firmly that i must be strong for his sake and move on with my life. immediately i would find a new boyfriend and a new couch in a less haunted house.

and the credits would roll to pizzicato strings.

now that you have heard my wonderful story from my heart here are some animals and diary pages and photos from entomology department tour. i thought it was a good omen that i saw a death’s head hawkmoth.

]

tonight i want to share my small ghosts made of sculpey. last time i used paperclay, but it tended to chip, and i am not sure if i should coat the figures with gloss varnish. i painted with a size 00 brush, but i’ve decided to buy a size 00000 to add micro-details. i also want to share a poem i love.

“Ghost House” by Robert Frost

I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.

O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.

I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;

The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.

It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me –
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad, –
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.