Monday, May 2, 2011

Warwick Goble

The Lady and the Dragon


Kilmendy




Leda and the Swan





Goblin Market


Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Warwick Goble (1862-1943), a London native who was what some refer to as a peach-- White on the outside, yellow on the inside. He created illustrations for fairytale books, and was particularly fond of Japanese and Indian stories. These are just a few of my favorites of his.


I just love his soft, dreamy style. He's successfully made the list of Mikaela's Personal Heroes (tactfully abreviated MPH, like the noise you make when someone punches you in the stomach). After all, his name IS Warwick. I simply can't ignore a name as cool as Warwick.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Holly Berry and Beyonce

Today feels terribly uneventful, not unlike most other days. In a town as small as this, there's not much in the way of entertainment... Though, when I lived in a university town of 50,000 I felt the same way. Huh. That's vaguely depressing.

The birds are singing, the sun is shining, the grass grows greener every day, and I'm inside with all the blinds closed wandering around the internet and watching reruns of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on TV Land. My excuse is that it's really windy outside.

Today's Netflix is The Mothman Prophecies. Actually, it's not really today's; it came in the mail a couple days ago but I was out of town. Mom took me on a surprise birthday adventure to Hotel Julien in Dubuque, where we met up with my sisters. She wouldn't tell me what we were doing or where we were going, but I was curiously unalarmed... That is, until we pulled into the hotel and I saw a big wedding sign. The thought that my occasionally mentally unstable mother would kidnap me for an arranged marriage seriously crossed my mind, and wasn't dispelled until my equally unstable sisters arrived and assured me that no, I was not going to be married off to a gangly outcast for a dowry of three sows and a feather mattress. My dowry would have to be at least five sows, and maybe a mule, too.

The whole three hours to the hotel went something like this:

"Mom, should I have shaved for this?"

"All will be revealed soon, my young padiwan."

"...Are we going somewhere with attractive people? Because if we are, I'm going to need some deoderant, and I didn't bring any."

"Yes, there will be attractive people."

"Will they be black?"

"...Yes. We're going somewhere with Holly Berry and Beyonce." [Yes, I know, it's Halle Berry. Apparently my mother found Holly to be a more appropriate name; she couldn't remember Halle if her first born depended on it.]

Needless to say, I was confused, as well as rather unnerved for a great number of reasons. Later, she explained to me that my sisters look just like Holly/Halle Berry and Beyonce. Besides the fact that they're both white and have completely different builds and facial structures, of course.

Thus, the weekend was spent milling about local shops, eating food that was entirely too unhealthy, and marinating in the hotel hot tub. It was a true vacation.

Anywho, now I am home, and it's back to my dog, Futurama, and centaurs. I'm weaning off of Zoloft and switching to Cymbalta, so cable TV is increasingly depressing and everytime I stand up it's like being simultaneously dropped from a commercial airliner and forced to watch a rave disco through those weird 'intoxication simulation' goggles.

What can I say, my life is a party.