William Erwin Artist and Stuff

New Painting

2012-01-25T08:53:00.002-05:00

Entitled "First Rose of Spring," an 11x14 oil on canvas board. This is my most recent offering. I'm doing several things to include in my upcoming one-artist show at the Mason-Dixon Library in Stewartstown, PA this spring. Stay tuned for more.

New Painting: Afternoon Sparkles

2011-10-10T14:58:00.003-04:00

This 11x14 oil painting is a commission for a neighbor who loves the view outside from the windows at the back of her house, overlooking trees, hay fields and an old barn and house. She particularly loves the light during the late afternoon in the summer. The buck was kind enough to pose at no cost.

New Painting

2011-08-18T10:15:00.000-04:00

This is an 11" x 14" canvas board oil painting entitled "Celebrity No. 1" Can you guess who this is? This was my demo painting during the recent workshop I gave at the York Art Association in York, PA.

Junk in Our Bread

2011-05-15T08:56:00.001-04:00

This is what is in Harvest Pride's Marble Swirl bread. It's darker bread made by a smaller bakery, so one might assume it's good for you. Though some of the ingredients are vitamins, there is NO whole grain flour and all kinds of acids and chemicals that just can't be good for us. Do I need to say I'm not eating any of this? I wonder, is there a Polysorbate 50?

Paris Trip Series

2011-04-11T10:16:00.001-04:00

When I was in Paris in September, 2010, I got several photos that I planned to develop into a series of paintings. This is the first one, entitled "On the Metro." This guy was obviously trying to catch a cat nap on the subway one morning, and I just couldn't resist the shot!

This is an oil on canvas, 22" x 28"

New Painting: Tulip

2011-02-15T15:29:00.000-05:00

This is "Tulip," a St. Bernard puppy I had long ago in another century and another place. She quickly grew huge and was a fabulous dog. She never did, alas, wander around with a keg of scotch to save me from the horrors of being a public school teacher. This is an 11"x14" oil on canvas board.

New Pic

2011-01-05T14:53:00.000-05:00

Called "Face to Face," this is an 8"x10" oil on canvas, and my only (and last!) self-portrait. You will note that painting is much cheaper than pastic surgery. I do that for all my victims, er...portrait subjects.

I plan to have my next set of glasses sized just like this so they will help hide the bags under my eyes.

This will be in a show soon, but will, of course, win nothing. Fine. Just wanted to watch people's reactions, what I most get out of my art in public.

Peerce's Grille--A Withering Review

2010-12-20T09:22:00.002-05:00

Peerce's Grille is the reincarnation of the old Peerce's Plantation. A place in the country north of the Blto beltway on Dulaney Valley Rd.

Bottom line: I can't think of any reason I would ever go there again.

Gory Details:   It's Christmas time, so lots of people meet friends for dinner. Our dining companions suggested this place. Ok, I'll try any place--almost--once.

The second we entered the restaurant there was a boom of noise that greeted us. We had to walk through two crowded bars, so I thought it was just the merry-making folks scarfing their booze.   But then we entered the room where we had been assigned to sit. And the din was there! About 3/4ths full, the room had painted brick walls and some kind of ceiling with a hard, reflective coating--ideal for bouncing and amplifying every sound to deafening levels. I have to say that I have NEVER been in such a loud place, except a rock concert (loudness due to 10 billion watts of needless amplification), or some bars where the "music" added to the sound of humans trying to shout their conversations made being there like the sound equivalent to waterboarding.

Waiting. Meaning both what the servers do and what we did most of the time in Peerce's.  After a seemingly endless time, a scruffy-looking, but not hard on the eyes, young male waiter took our drink order. We were trying to visit over the noise, so our waiting was not torturous, other than to our throats.  I had ordered Dewars and soda, no citrus, and was served a short glass with scotch and coke! Scotch and coke! I can't imagine that the barkeep would mix such a thing w/o checking carefully with the waiter. Where does soda mean specifically a coke!? So that got returned with attitude immediately, and I suspected it would be downhill from there.

Maybe 30 minutes later, we finally had our order taken. I was distressed by the boring, same ol' same ol' Blto nature of the menu, but decided to try the blackened chicken pasta which was, honestly, the ONLY entree that sounded interesting to me at all.   Menus and food preferences are very personal, so others might adore the selections. Google Peerce's Grille to find the menu.

About 30 minutes later I got my salad (a pseudo Caesar with "heart of romaine"). Tho not close to a real Caesar dressing (it was very creamily "solid" and had been applied to the pitiful lettuce with a pastry sleeve-I guess someone's idea of making silk outta a sow's...well you know the saying...we discussed that spelling grill with an e was another attempt to "silk" the place), the dressing was acceptable. I finished only 1/2 of the salad, since the dearth of dressing resulted in a plate full of dry, shriveled "heart."

David had a "French" onion soup, which came out cool. They probably stowe the soup in the bowls in the fridge, and when preparing, put the cheese on it and set it in an industrial heating gadget to melt the cheese. The only problem is that this does NOT warm the soup. Totally unacceptable.

Another 30 minutes and our entrees arrived. My "blackened" chicken pasta was nowhere blackened, and neither did it taste of "blackening." Now I rarely if ever return any food at a restaurant, sometimes to my regret (such as neglecting to return an unchewably tough and sinewy filet at a McCormick and Smick's grill). But after the noise and slow service, added to my botched drink and boring salad, this was just too much.   So holding up a piece of white chicken, I asked the larval waiter, "do you see any blackening on this piece of chicken? Do you see any blackening on the pasta?" He just stood there, and said, "we can put more on," and I said, "it's not a matter of 'more,' there's no blackening nor any blackening flavor, so take it back to the kitchen." He brought it back before long, and indeed the cook (who is allegedly a "famous" chef in the Blto area!?) has added more blackening seasonings and it was not bad. I suggested that the "chef" probably spit in it, but I was not charged extra for that.  Even after a redo, the dish was nothing special. Anyone could do it at home with macaroni, diced chicken, a parmesan cream sauce with McCormack's blackened seasonings added. And this dish was touted as some kind of signature dish. Big Deal!

One of our companions had their "Mesquite Steak Salad." The big salad came out with 6 tiny, round, thin slices of beef. Each not much more than the size of a quarter. The veggies had been shredded and chopped, like the old, Blto salads at Marconi's and Hausner's. He commented that the salad dressing, which was not visible, tasted like A-1 Sauce.  Sophisticated! Excuse a few LOLs here!

Can you tell I didn't like this place at all? Well, my rating reflects that.

So not to come off as a total Holiday Grinch, I have to say that it was nice visiting with friends and the food really was secondary.

Rating: 4.0787 out of 787,098.0097

New Painting 10/2010

2010-10-29T13:06:00.000-04:00

Naughty Gnome Upstaging the Lemon, 11x14 oil on canvas board

Debi Watson did an oil exercise using the same still life, but later I knew it needed something, so I asked one of my garden gnomes to pose. He got right in front of the lemon and refused to move, ergo the title.

New Commission

2010-05-05T09:49:00.000-04:00

My latest commission, "David and Norma Marroquin" for two friends in McAllen, Texas. 16 x 20 oil.

The Permanence of Things

2010-03-19T06:24:00.001-04:00

Will hot dog buns last forever? Possibly. I had a pack of 8 in the fridge and they had been there for a really long time. So I looked at them the other day, fully expecting to see that gray mold that does so dearly love bread. But none. The bottom buns were hard to the touch, but the top ones were soft and no mold. I looked at these buns on March 15 and the "sell by" date was in October, the year before.

Now I don't normally like "Wonder-type" bread. Any bread, a piece of which can be squished down between your fingers to the size of a pea, is something to be avoided, because in my book it's not really bread, but some other chemically-inspired concoction that looks and functions as bread but isn't really. But even the most adent home-baked bread enthusiasts need a good hot dog from time to time, and hot dogs just don't taste right to me on anything but an old fashioned, Wonder-type, bun.

So I'll just ignore all the chemicals listed on the package for my hot dog fixes, and I'll feel good thinking that these things will last in the fridge for a long, long, long time. Indefinitely? Who knows!?

Latest Artworks

2010-02-28T09:48:00.001-05:00

This is a very small, 6"x 8", graphite drawing based on a photo I took in the early '60s (no! not 1860s!) of an old car repair shop in Houston, Texas. It was a summer day, which in Houston means hot and very humid. These two guys were just watching the traffic go by.

This 16 x 20 oil is entitled "The Red Rail." Pretty self-explanatory.

'S No Kidding Phase II

2010-02-08T10:12:00.003-05:00

Lovely rural southern York County PA, otherwise known as "Grove Millia" for gnome purposes, got probably 24 to 30" of snow this last Saturday (2/6). OK. Then we got another big one (probably 13-15") on Wednesday 2/10! Who knows when we'll get outta here. Our road has not been plowed yet as of Friday a.m. 2/12. We're coping.

This was after the 2/6 snow.

After the 2/10 snow!

Audrey in the snow valley.

Praline, "helping."

Our drive and then our road & mailbox near the tree.

Latest Painting

2010-01-30T10:18:00.005-05:00

"Portrait of David"
16 x 20
Oil on Canvas

You'll find many more at my website http://www.william-erwin-artist.com/

Drive Through Gyros in York!

2009-12-16T09:31:00.001-05:00

Ah, the chicken gyro (however you're spose to pronounce it!)!

There was a little place in the Gallery (or Galleria, whatever) Mall in York that served excellent chicken gyros, and the platter had a small but delicious Greek salad and some rice. I'd go up to York JUST to have one. But like so many good restaurants/eateries in York, once they have you hooked, they close.

I've searched far and wide (ok, maybe not that far or wide) for another great chicken gyro, but alas and alack (alak?) I've only found one place that even HAS those, and they are not nearly as good. But now my search has ended, unless this new place closes right away.

A drive through Greek food place. Novel idea, and perhaps even risky, considering that York does not have even 1 sit down exclusively Greek restaurant. But wha'dI know!? It's called Gyro-X-Press and is located at 55 Memory Lane just slightly north of the interesection with Market, and on the right. Note: the drive through is not what it looks like, so pass that and go to the back of the place where the drive through begins. Oh, and it's ONLY drive through.

I got the Chicken Gyro meal with honey mustard on the sandwich. Since many folks eat in their cars, they have chopped up the meat and veggies, making it easier to eat as a sandwich (comes in a warm pita), or you can fork it out easily as well. Comes with nice crispy fries and a drink and maybe for a promotion, came also with little round sweet things, looking like round sticky buns, which they call "locomades."

Note 2: the sandwiches don't come generally with honey mustard, so be sure to specify on the sandwich. Seems they come standard with the Greek cucumber garlic sauce called "Tzatziki."

I got the chicken gyro cuz I don't do lamb (their standard gyro is lamb and beef mixed), and they also have a pork gyro which I plan to try next time. Other stuff on their menu include a chicken souvlaki sandwich, all the gyros in wraps (I guess the tortilla thing), spinach pie, cheese pie, pastitsio, and a few other things.

I highly recommend this place, and if you are not a meat-a-tarian as I am, then you can recommend to your meat-loving friends. Next time I'll get a gyro not a meal, and a small Greek salad on the side! Yum! Food Rules!

Tapenade Grill - A Review

2009-12-09T09:35:00.001-05:00

The Tapenade Grill is located in the Olde Tollgate Village in/near York, PA. I had the misfortune to dine there yesterday for lunch. Here's the scoop, pun intended.

On the plus side, the owner or chef or whoever, has put together a very interesting menu. You pay really high prices for it, and that's because York is not known for sophisticated, if overly glucosed, cuisine on every street corner. Rarity has it's price. They are open breakfast through lunch but folks are spared a sugar-infused dinner, thank Universe!

But now to the trashing. While their menu features a whole page of what looks to be very interesting salads, every one of the dressings, save the Caesar, is full of sugar--even the blue cheese (Gorgonzola) dressing! So I got the beef-topped salad with normal salad stuff, plus 3 fried onion rings on top and a tasteless soft bread stick lying next to all that with Ceasar dressing on the side. I would have loved a good, non-sweet, gorgonzola dressing, but such was not offered. The salad was ok, though the beef was sliced, obviously, for sandwiches, so the waitresses's question as to how I would liked it cooked was meaningless, but probably helped justify the $14 price tag-- for a few slices of slightly pink sandwich roast beef on a bed of normal salad stuff and 3 onion rings! I had a cup of seafood gumbo B4 the salad. It came out almost room temperature, and there were probably 3 tiny pieces of unidentifiable seafood in the cup. Really tiny! Soup which is spose to be hot should be served hot! Speaking of cups, they do serve coffee in really big cups. That was a nice touch.

Sweet stuff: Now as I have written elsewhere on this blog, any adult has an absolute right to her/his own food preferences. Period! People should refrain from negative bitchy comments on others' food preferences because we all have them and all live in glass houses on that account. (Sure!) One of mine is sweet stuff. I'm not at all fond of sweets, and certainly not sweet stuff with, or on, what is generally considered a savory dish. So the "sugar in everything" approach at this place is totally alien to my food preferences, and therefore I can't say good things about that. Others would love it, I'm sure. But even having said all that, you have to admit that sugar in a blue cheese dressing is weird verging on unappetizing. Kinda like tuna fish ice cream.

So I give this place a grade of C-, and I never intend to step foot in there again. Ptui!

Oh, and in the manner of the child who pips Joan Crawford in her bath in the only valid movie version of "The Women": Tapenade is an olive mixture popular in Mediterranean places, not cooked and
served room temp. I don't recall seeing it on the menu, or seeing it served with anything.

Little Tiny Canvases

2009-11-30T17:27:00.001-05:00

These tiny 2.5" square canvases and their well-constructed little easels I got from Daniel Smith. Acrylics, so I could do 'em fast and put another coat on right away. Did 'em in 2 days. I plan to use 'em all joined on Photoshop as my holiday card for 2010. This proves beyond a doubt that I have the Holiday spirit this year! I wish everyone Happy Holidays!

Introducing Winston

2009-11-23T10:03:00.001-05:00

Introducing our new cat, whose full name is Winston Plushpussy. He adopted us about 6 months ago, has been "vetted" in all the required ways, does not stray now, is about 3 (according to the vet), and has been a stray/outside-only cat so long that he's not sure what to do with the kitty litter box. Lessons are undway, but he's still confused. Fabulously friendly cat, whose coat has no guardhairs and is all undercoat, thus the last name. Now that's 4, and the "vacancy" sign has been taken down.

Welcome! Winston.

The BD Rule (aka Carpe Diem With a Twist)

2009-11-16T12:28:00.000-05:00

The BD Rule is short for "The Bill Dead Rule."

Subsection 1: I postpone things I don't want to do because if I wake up dead tomorrow, then I got out of doing them!

Subsection 2: I do things I want to do as soon as possible, so I'll get them done and enjoy them in case, again, I wake up dead tomorrow morning.

A Few Reviews

2009-11-16T12:04:00.000-05:00

Manor Tavern Sunday Brunch Buffet: I give it a B. Plusses-- For $4 more ($19 is the base price) you get endless Bloody Marys or Mimosas! Eggs Benedict are not like hockey pucks. The middle was even slightly soft and runny, as it should be. Plenty of breads, but no muffins or toast. Non-breakfast offerings were few but tasty. Minuses--guy was never at the omelette station; bacon was thick but almost raw, waffles were cold and sitting in a bowl. Nobody was eating waffles. Service was awful, but then that's par for the course at the Manor Tavern in the dining room.

Movie: Bolt: A really enjoyable computer animated film. About a cute dog and his friends a street-smart cat and a gerble. Great fun and fabulous animation, if you like pets. I highly recommend.

Movie: Fracture: One of the best movies David and I have seen in ages. Courtroom, crime drama with a stunning Anthony Hopkins as the accused murderer of his wife and the most impressive Ryan Gosling as the Assistant District Attorney. Certainly not your run-of-the-mill TV cop story. I really highly recommend this one.

This Holiday Season

2009-11-06T09:09:00.000-05:00

Last year I skipped the holiday season. Well, except for sending cards out and leaving a tiny plastic santa figure on the mantle, a figure that had been there for about 6 months before the holidays. It's still there.

So about June 18, I suddenly got totally into the holiday spirit. I wanted to listen to Xmas music and put up the tree. However, after total scorn and derision from friends and household entities, I squelched the spirit for months. But now it's coming out, alive and well and ready for globes and tinsel!

This year will be the whole 9 yards (whatever that means). Tree, ornaments, lights, everything out of Xmas boxes and set up on table tops....or any tops of anything. Three creches! And no limit to Xmas gifts this year. As is my wont, I will wrap just anything and put it under the tree, many as gifts from Santa (one luckier than the guy in the picture) to both of us. I have a new pair of sheets and those will be there! Sometimes I've wrapped packages of underware, and even kleenex boxes that were not needed B4 January.

I just love to see gobs of gifts under the tree. (Well, since we use a 3' fake tree on top of a chest, the packages are strewn all over the floor, but in reasonable proximity to the tree.) Reminds me of my larva-hood when my sister Judy and I would get up hideously early and wander into the living room to see a lit, flocked, tree and lots of presents under it. I think Xmas was my favorite part of being a larval unit. About everything else I hated.

But no negative thoughts! Deck the Halls! Ring a bell (if you can find a metal one)! But NO opening of gifts until the morning of the 25th! (Beware, there will be more!)

New Painting

2009-09-06T05:53:00.006-04:00

My latest oil, 20x30, entitled "Camp Stewart Fun." I used as my reference photo a picture I took in 1960 when I was at Camp Stewart in the hill country of Texas. A beautiful site along the Guadalupe River where they had dredged out a small lake for boating, swiming and other aquatic sports.

Food Rules #2: The Left Bank Restaurant

2009-08-05T17:32:00.004-04:00

Did lunch for the first time at The Left Bank, in York, Pa. today. What a pleasant and delicious surprise. My two dining companions agreed whole-heartedly!

We had their calamari for an appetizer. Not a huge serving, but sufficient, the rings were done in a very light batter and not over-done. The sauce was a delight--a slightly creamy concoction with banana peppers, and chopped scallion greens.

For the main course I had Chipotle Char Crust Seared Yellowfin Tuna, Corn Potato Hushpuppies and Picante Vegetables. Fabulous!

I highly recommend this place and am looking forward to a second visit. Food rules!

New Paintings

2009-07-29T15:11:00.005-04:00

"Dee" - 11x14 oil on canvas board. This is a commission for a fellow artist -- a real compliment!

"The Bobby" - 11x14 oil on canvas board.

Award

2009-07-19T06:07:00.004-04:00

I was very honored to be one of the five winners of the 2009 Rottler Award for Excellenc in the Visual Arts at the York Art Association. In addition to the cash award, winners will have a 5-artist exhibit of artworks in March of 2010. As Debi Watson told me, I'd better get started painting!

New Painting: Exuberance

2009-07-14T12:30:00.009-04:00

Greetings. I've just completed the painting to the left. It's a 16x10 oil on canvas, a casual portrait of my great niece, Judy a couple of years ago at the age of 10.

Looks like fun. I'd love to be in that pool right now! Check out more of my artworks at http://www.william-erwin-artist.com/

Rabbits and Parallel Universes

2009-06-03T10:42:00.004-04:00

Two things: 1) there are wild rabbits around here, and 2) scientists' calculations indicate that parallel universes indeed do exist--right in the same space we exist--probably countless numbers of these, where there are worlds like ours, and ones in which our counterparts inhabit. So what about the rabbits?

Well, today, as I zipped along (people who have ridden with me are laughing right now) our rural roads, I spotted several rabbits either just on the road or on the shoulder. Three rabbits actually, two adults together and later one baby (rabbitoid? rabbitette?). They were standing as is the rabb-exibit in the photo, looking towards the fields. As I passed the rabbits slowly hopped away from the road, but such a coincidence (there are no coincidences said someone or other) led me to wonder, were those rabbits just connected to a parallel universe and that's why they were standing so dangerously close to or on the road, all staring at the fields? Or had they just popped into existence in our universe and were momentarily confused? I guess we'll never know.

But if there ARE parallel universes, then do we ever interact with those other "us'es" on the other sides? Maybe. It appears that the same science that tells us there uncountable parallel universes, also tells us scientists don't understand what sleep is, really, in terms of exactly what happens physiologically when one falls asleep. Could it be that our dreams, rather than the rather boring notion of putting everything together from the experiences of the day, are actually mental excursions into our other selves and other worlds right where we lie? Sounds absurd, right? But what about those little protons which quantum theory tells us disappear and reappear and appear sometimes in more than one place at a time? Protons that we consider "solid" matter that behave unexpectedly. Everything that is, in our world, is make up of GeorgeBushgillions of protons. Speculation is that they may be wandering into parallel universes. So if our brain's protons are wandering off to places unknown, could our dreams be the result of our protons, atoms, molecules, cells of our brain wandering around in a parallel universe?

I think that explains the dream I had last night about getting lost in Stewartstown, PA. LOL

Food Rules or New Thai Place in York

2009-03-20T16:32:00.010-04:00

Today at lunch I tried the relatively new Thai food restaurant in York, PA, USA. It's called Thai House, and is located at 3609 East Market, about 1 mile east of 24 on the left going east.

The photo is not of this restaurant, but it reminds me of it. One can't help but be impressed with both the interior and exterior of the place. As opposed to some store front in a strip center, this is a redone, stand-alone building, painted dark red with Thai-like trimmings. But that's just the beginning. The interior is wonderful---full of what looks like genuine Siamese stuff, musical instruments, wall hangings, all kinds of things. It's clearly the most atmospheric Thai place I've ever been in. Very impressive.

For today's test, I ordered hot tea, the Lemon Grass Soup with chicken (one hot pepper symbol) and the Panang Curry (two hot pepper symbols out of three). The widely smiling waitress, probably Thai, spoke only a few words of English, such as hello and thank you. I proceeded to tell her my order and still smiling, she looked at me as if I had grown 2 more heads. Clearly the point-to-the-item-on-the-menu approach was called for, and even then she was confused. Perhaps she could not read the English on the menu. In any case, she was very nice and everything came just as ordered.

The hot tea was standard. The Lemon Grass Soup was excellent. The bowl was chocked full of the appropriate veggies and chicken and was perfectly seasoned in terms of heat (1 pepper symbol). The Panang Curry (with chicken) came in a bowl on a rectangular plate with rice and a flourish of sliced carrot and cucumber. Very attractive presentation. The Panang was delicately flavored. Some places make this dish very "in your face." I like it either way. I was offered more rice and tea, but had plenty.

I arrived around 11:30 and there was one couple there already (they open at 11:00). By the time I left a bit after noon, there were 6 tables of customers--many "ladies who lunch," and a few folks probably on their lunch hour. No other artists that I could tell. Maybe they allow only 1 table at a time like convenience stores and teenagers.

For folks who do not like hot peppers in their food, most of the offerings had no pepper symbols, and you can always ask for things with no hot pepper at all, that is if the waitress understands you.

All in all it was a very good dining experience. Considering the quality of the food and the wonderful atmosphere, I will certainly be going back soon. I highly recommend this place.

(Again I apologize for the lack of space between paragraphs. I cannot fix it and as I've said, Blogspot has one of the worst word processors I've ever seen since about 1869!)

Trailer-Trash Spotting or Shocking Exposé

2009-03-15T09:04:00.008-04:00

Though "redneck" is the more generally used term, we who grew up in Texas often use the the term trailer-trash, which is alternately white trash or poor white trash (PWT). (Note: the term "trailer trash" does not exlude people living in dwellings other than trailers).

I am alone amongst my friends in that I love to go to the Shrewsbury, PA WalMart and trailer trash (TT) spot. I don't get too close, but it's great, free entertainment. And now that I have a camera phone, I'll be shooting some winning TT shots, perhaps even to share on this blog.

The purpose of this posting today, however, is to relate a particularly fabulous example of my WalMart TT spotting. It is gross (of course, since TT are usually gross), so children under the age of 24 should not read this, or read this only in the company of an adult or great uncle.

(Note that the picture above is from the internet of a sickenly muddy event in something called the Redneck Olympics.) But I digress...

One summer morning I happened to be at My Favorite Store (MFS--that would be the Shrewsbury WalMart), and parked not far from the door, for a change, because TT don't normally get up very early to shop. The men are too hungover, and tired from beating their wives/girlfriends/sheep, and the women are exhausted from all the battering and attempts by their boyfriends/husbands the night before to make love while drunk and fully impotent.

MFS was pretty empty judging from the parking lot, but I was elated to see in front of me, maybe 55 feet away, the most exquisite example of TT womanhood! She was a hefty female, maybe 50 to 75 lbs overweight. Not tall. Her hair was the typical dirty (ever washed?) died blond, cut rather short, as if with grass clipping shears. It appeared to be ratted, which would be that much easier when unwashed for months. She was wearing a tank top, her back flesh hanging over the material because the tank top was not her correct size. Fortunately, I did not see this from the front, because I was behind her. The tank top was orange.

She had on a very, VERY short skirt, again way too small for her amplage (remember I make up words as necessary). On the skirt were large yellow and red florals on a purple background and the stretchy material was about stretched to the limit.

And finally, the pièce de résistance (if you're gonna use French, you MUST do the accents or lose sophistication points): She was wearing pink, slip-on house shoes, dirty feet inserted into the dirty pink floppies. I think they had a fuzzy animal head on the front, but I could not tell for sure.

I was transfixed by this TT goddess when all of a sudden she stopped walking and looked down at the ground. Perhaps she had seen a penny or a barette. And then it happened. She bent down to pick up whatever she saw. Bent at the waist, legs straight.

Remember I said the skirt was very, VERY short. I stopped walking and watched with fascination and then horror as the back of her little skirt disappeared as she bent over, and there it was--a full mooning with extras. She was not wearing any underware! I could not divert my eyes, as much as I should have, and wanted to--much like at a car wreck. Everything that one should never see in a Walmart parking lot (or anywhere else for that matter) was exposed to the world. Everything!

I know you are all concerned for my well-being after such an event. At first I thought I was suffering from some post-trailer-trash trama syndrome, but I assure you that I have totally recovered from the shock and awe of that sight, thanks to numerous scotches and a couple of years time.

Oh, and by the way, she was NOT a natural blond.

What's Out There

2009-02-21T11:36:00.016-05:00

I don't like the term atheist. It brings with it lots of luggage from way back, and it is perhaps too rigidly defined as "not believing in a god" to describe what we skeptics think about all that. Today, with all we know, and are learning almost every minute about our universe, it's way too limiting to say that a skeptic simply does not believe in a god. So let's see what I believe and what I don't believe.

I don't believe that there is some omnipotent, omniscient being that interacts with humans, or ever has, in any way. I guess that's really two things.

I believe in science to explain the universe and human beings' place in that universe, which means that I fully believe in evolution as a fact, and that we humans are learning more and more, and speculating with greater certainty, about how the universe, its contents, and life came to be.

I reject all rules and beliefs of human religions having to do with life after death. I don't believe in a soul. For all life forms we know of, if they have self-awareness, it is part of the organisms, not some supernatural thing. In the case of higher animals, it's in the brain, and when the brain is dead, the self-awareness, and, in our case, humaness, is gone. I equally reject reincarnation because I reject the idea of a soul.

I do not see any "consolation" or "comfort" in any religious belief. Rather, I find it fascinating and comforting to know that I am made of star stuff, and that, after death, my body will eventually return to the atoms created in those stars, and that in a real way, I will return to the elemental.

I believe totally in science, as I said before. Human science does not have all the answers and it may never have those, but scientific theories are based on facts or ideas that have basis in a scientific process. In religion, beliefs are based on tradition, stories, prejudices, rules and that famous catch all, faith, which is a bogus and mostly meaningless concept. I reject all human religions as placebos to soothe humans who fear death, and whose rules and rituals are meant to launch certain humans in those religions into positions of power and wealth.

Einstein's General Relativity (which is not really a theory anymore, having been proven as a fact) would have blown the minds of scientific thinkers in ancient Greece. So there is no telling what science will come up with in the future. For that reason, I cannot say that there might not be scientific realities that today reside in the realm of the supernatural.

I cannot deny that religion can occasionally have a positive effect on human behavior, but I think history shows that most of the impact of religion has been negative if not clearly destructive. Religion has created beautiful architecture, art and music, but as far as making humans better, I am not sure any improvement in our condition can be ascribed to religions. I will put out there that most of the wars and conflicts in today's world are based on human religions.

So I'm not content with the label atheist because it is too restrictive and leaves no room for future scientific discoveries. And I am not foolish enough to think humankind, in the main, will be able to happily exist without the crutch of religion--not for a long, long time. So I'll have to enjoy scientific discoveries about this universe, avoid right-wing religiots when possible, and to settle with the term "skeptic" to describe my relation to all religions.

Fine Art Versus "Fashion" Art- One Man's Opinion

2009-01-12T07:46:00.006-05:00

I love Jackson Pollock's drippy stuff. I love much of Picasso. I love Francis Bacon's darkly sick works too. My works are realistic, but I have a pretty wide range of what I would consider art, fine or not. But not everyone thinks that way.

Paul Johnson, in his really heavy (must weigh 7 lbs!), image-lacking book, "Art, A New History," really doesn't like much of anything not representational and I admire his cojones for saying so. It's still very daring to not adore "modern" art, particularly for an art historian or critic.

I want to share his own words with you, because he says it best. This stuff will not sit well with abstract folks, but it's healthy to read another view, right?

"We now come to one of the key developments in the history of art: the rise of fashion art as opposed to fine art...It is a different matter [from historic changes in artistic styles], however, when changes in art are forced through not by the quest for order but simply by the desire for novelty, itself enhanced by the needs of commerce. Then art becomes a fashion industry rather than a noble pursuit."

"...Cubism can fairly be classified as the first major instance of fashion art, as opposed to fine art. By traditional standards of measurement, going back over thousands of years in the Western tradition, fine art is a combination of novelty and skill. The novelty must be there, otherwise the work is unoriginal and lacks integrity. But it must also contain skill, otherwise the work is a mere invention, like a new electrical applicance...The distinction between fine art and fashion art is not absolute. All that can be said is that fine art becomes fashion art when the ratio of novelty and skill is changed radically in favour of novelty. That is what occurred with Cubism, especially when Cubism transmuted itself into collage and construction."

"It is another characteristic of fashion art that it inevitably produces more fashion art since, when the novelty wears off and the low degree of skill becomes apparent, there is a demand for fresh novelties, and a new phase of art is produced to satisfy it."

"But in general, these movements [all the various "isms" of the early part of the 20th century], though rich in verbal justifications, were poor in providing images that stuck in the mind. Few wanted to look at their pictures twice, the central and abiding weakness of fashion art."

Food Rules

2008-12-25T09:23:00.005-05:00

For kids, food probably doesn't rule, but as one ages, it does more and more. Other things may still rule, perhaps, in youth and young adulthood when hormones have not calmed down, but with age, food definitely becomes number one! At least with me.

I respect anyone's right to eat or not to eat whatever. It's not a proper topic for criticism (one of my favorite pasttimes). Period. People who openly criticize another's taste in food are showing their trailer-trash genes. Not cool. Plus people will hate you even more than they do now! I don't like chocolate or lamb or much sweet stuff. Get over it!

What about vegetarians or vegans? See rule above. Whatever. I won't hesitate to gobble up meat in their presence, but their food choice is their deal, not mine. We will make sure any meal at my house accommodates our guests' likes, dislikes and allergies. That's only proper hospitality.

So what about this "food rules" thing? Well, since I don't believe in an afterlife (and even religions are pretty vague on whether you'll be able to taste or not after death!), I must carpe as much diem as I can, and food is my most important diem! (Carpe diem is Latin for "sieze the day," but you can easily substitute "burger" or "food" and get to the same place.)

I am lucky to have a partner (a fabulous cook!) who also believes that "food rules." So when we travel, the MOST important thing about the destination (e.g., France, Italy, etc.) or the experience (e.g., a cruise) is the food. EVERYTHING else is second if not 3rd or 4th. There may be exceptions to this (such as attendance at a fabulous art conference) but not many. We gave not planned any trips to England.

And since I don't think anything exists for a being after death, other than the chemicals and atoms of the body unit, I won't miss food after I'm dead, but would if I still had a consciousness which I won't. But before that happens, I'll make sure that food continues to rule and that I enjoy it as much as possible. If I lost my sense of taste, I'd simply have to call Dr. Kavorkian. Oh, and the diet begins after my Texas trip in early January.

Awaiting the Bill - How much you owe

2008-12-15T10:32:00.006-05:00

I read in the current Atlantic Magazine's excellent article by James Fallows, "Be Nice to the Countries That Lend You Money," that our debt to China, by the time Obama takes office, will be in the neighborhood of $2 trillion, and that we owe Japan about the same, and there is much more if you count all the countries that Bush has borrowed money from to wage his wars and expand our national debt far beyond anything in our history, even with amounts adjusted for inflation.

The words, Two Trillion Dollars, really don't register much with us non-economist folks, but here it is written: $2,000,000,000,000. That's four sets of zeros after the 2! Now the article was not clear if that includes interest owed to China, or just the principle borrowed, but let's work with the $2 trillion number. There are approximately 300,000,000 folks in the U.S. If you divide $2 trillion by 300 million you get about:

$6,700,000,000!

That is 6 billion, 700 million dollars that each of us owes to China for the money they have lent the U.S. government for whatever, much of whatever including the wars in the middle east which cost (according, again, to the same article) $2 billion A DAY!!!!!

So if you add another $2 trillion we owe Japan, and not couting any other country's loans, we each owe:

$13 billion, 400 million each. That's dollars. For each one of us.

I think I recall that we had NO deficit at the end of Bill Clinton's last term. Am I wrong in that?

In any case, thanks George and friends for all this. I guess we'll each get a bill from the government and if we can't just write a check for Six Billion, Seven Hundred Million Dollars, we can pay it off, each at $670 million a year for 20 years. Each.

Procrastination

2008-12-10T09:51:00.006-05:00

Here is the official Rofius****approach to doing things, finishing them or not.

1) Don't do anything unpleasant (cleaning, holiday cards, taxes, changing the cat litter box, etc.) until you absolutely have to, because you might die before then and, in that case, you will not have had to do it at all! Carpe diem!

2) If there is something you need/want to do that is fun, however (for example, meeting with good friends, trashing people you don't like, and of course eating good food because Food Rules, etc.) then do it as soon as possible for a similar but totally opposite reason than in 1) above--you want to make sure you do it before you die! You want to fill your ante mortem time with as many pleasant things as possible! Carpe diem!

*****See post #1 for what/who Rofius is.

Christmas Story

2008-12-08T13:06:00.005-05:00

Being not in the spirit of the season this year, I offer to you , dear reader, this little aneck-dote from a past Bilvid Christmas (The Bilvid = Bill and David)

Here is the tree story, in the form of a plant review, from Christmas 2004:

Plant: Eastern Cedar
Location: Grove Mill Rd, Stewartstown, PA

Have you ever wondered, maybe when you were so bored that even a daytime soap opera looked good, why "they" don't sell Eastern Cedar, that ubi (quitous) [from the Latin, ubi = where, when] trash evergreen, as a Christmas tree? No? Well, yes, I'm going to tell you why. Briefly, we had a seedling come up in a flower bed 5 years ago and considered leaving it there, but it got too big. My idea was to use it for our Christmas tree this year. It's an evergreen, so it should smell good in the house! Good use of the tree! I felt so virtuous, I thought maybe I'd join the Green Party!

So, yesterday we chopped down the 6-foot tree, and set it up in the house. The first thing we noticed was that it was the ugliest thing anyone could ever have for a Christmas tree. We had not trimmed it at all as it grew, and it was wider at the top than the bottom, so it looked like a giant upside down Christmas bush, if you'll pardon the expression. The next thing we noticed was that it smelled like cat piss or cat spray! Logical, because it had been in the flower bed and horrendous foreign cats (ours are horrendous too, but all have been neutered) had no doubt marked the tree from time to time. So I got some of that air spray that smells as bad as what it covers, and sprayed the bottom of the tree. No good. It still smelled like cat piss mixed with "notes" of rotten evergreen. Oh, the odor will go away, we said, and proceeded to trim the tree with lights and ornaments. Last night we were forced to go 1) shopping 2) to eat Mexican food and 3) to the grocery for "storm" supplies. When we returned, barely able to walk and weighing 15 pounds more each, we were almost bolled over by the cat piss/rotten evergreen smell when we came through the front door. By this time the rotten evergreen was winning out over the cat piss stench, and we decided that the damn tree just naturally smelled that way!

As the evening wore on, and we watched the 75th consecutive episode of Law and Order, Sex Squad or whatever it's called, we saw the tree slowly fall over and settle to the floor, all to the sound of crunching glass globes. The Dreaded Audrey and sundry cats fled the room in terror as we jumped up to right the tree and save the ornaments! We got it back up, and in about 5 minutes it fell over again retraumatizing whichever animals were in the room. By this time the stench was so bad--it had permeated the entire house--we reluctantly decided to return our Green Party cards, take it down and throw it away. What a pain in the ass!

So now you know why "they" don't sell Eastern Cedars (which are actually not true cedars but junipers, and, I guess, would make good gin) for Christmas trees--they stink and are top heavy.

Plant rating: .01093847 out of 10,000.10394856

Art Contests -- Where are the standards?

2008-12-02T17:05:00.015-05:00

Jurists and judges at art contests, gallery owners, art instructors, museum curators, art critics and historians, and certainly investors, all may know (and I reiterate "may know") something about art, but their greatest talent surely lies in seemingly endless and basically meaningless verbage about art. And more specifically about how whatever they love or own or have in their museum or gallery or what they choose in a show as an award winner, is good or even great art. I can't begin (but will nonetheless try below) to imitate the ceaseless flow of balderdash and flowery language that these people use, but more than anything else such behavior points to the "emperor's new clothes" nature of art today. There are no standards. You can just imagine the language that the curator/gallery owner of the installaion of rocks to the left must gush to visitors. And think of the dribble that an art critic might use who, for whatever reason, issues a stellar review of the show! Let's try it: ...the inner strength of the installation's overarching spirit towards the meaning of now and the inviolable nowness of the future, as well as the desolate isolation between entities who yearn to co-mingle their essence of strength and fragility.... (those are the piles of rocks, see?)

Certainly art is no longer constrained by the rules that were inviolable in the 19th century before the impressionists. But today, other than the superiority of money in art, which perhaps is a sort of standard, there are no standards.

Can you think of any other type of contest where absolutely no standards, other than arbritrary monetary values, exist? Can you imagine a piano competition where no standards exist? Impossible! You have to have a certain level of talent and communicative skills to even enter such a contest. But not with art. One of my instructors said, "the only rule in art is that there are no rules." He could also have added that there are no standards. Can't be if rocks on a floor can be the same thing as this:

Miss McCormick and Her Pepper Grinder

2008-11-27T12:23:00.007-05:00

Remember the days before everyone had pepper grinders? We all used ground pepper in a small metal container, often McCormick's. It was finely ground. In fact, you could easily have a sneezing fit if any got in your nose. Kinda like thick powder. And it had a strong black pepper odor! But today, with the craze of fresh ground pepper, lots of folks don't even keep ground pepper in a can in their spice cabinet anymore! So a couple of things have happened. 1) People quickly realize that pepper grinders have a mind of their own and a short half-life. Sometimes you get lots out, sometimes almost none, sometimes it grinds a good grind, and sometimes huge pieces tumble out and these invariably turn into attack pepper in your mouth! 2) Maybe to make ground pepper look more like grinder ground pepper, someone at McCormick's (maybe Miss McCormick herself!), decided to "thick" grind their canned ground pepper. So now it's no longer like thick powder, but it also has no odor, and very little flavo(u)r! (u added for the Brits out there, so you'll feel loved). And it won't come out of older pepper shakers whose holes were designed for the finer grind kind of yore--whenever yore was! (Note: the solution here, if you find one of these older pepper shakers at a restaurant, is to blazenly remove the top and pour your pepper from the shaker!). So now pepper lovers are stuck with a) grinders who are obstinant and bossy and b) ground pepper in cans that has no flavor or odor. And to add to this, all the cooks on TV use some huge testosteronated pepper grinder that has never appeared in any of my cooking catalogs, and is probably available only from a restaurant supply house, and to order it you have to be a restaurant.

The solution, of course, is to keep tasteless, odorless modern ground pepper (is it really tiny pieces of paper dyed black?) in the cabinet and get a new pepper grinder (why ARE they so damned expensive!!!????) every year.

Finish Your Vegetables

2008-11-23T07:06:00.006-05:00

Why do we think we have to finish stuff? Is it cuz our moms told us to finish our vegetables, finish our homework, finish the dishes? Did we grow up with a Finish Monkey on our backs? Probably.
Sure, there are things we abosolutely have to finish or we'll really suffer otherwise. We must finish our taxes, our jury duty, finish paying the bills, finish being polite to the cop who pulls us over or security checks in airports. But we take this finishing thing everywhere.
How many times have you finished a movie, book, TV show, sports event, live performance, even tho you hated it!? Why do we do that? This is personal entertainment, not a duty!
Well, I made a Rofiesque decision, now that I'm almost a full geezer, not to waste my limited time with "entertainment" that I don't like. So now, much to the annoyance of my partner or "entertainment" companions, if I don't like something, I simply don't finish it! I walk out on TV shows or movies that begin to annoy me, I stop reading a book if I hate it, I leave performances if I don't like them, or if I've had enuff. And now that I've done this for some time, the twang of mom guilt, that finish your veggies thing, is just about gone.

Kickoff

2008-11-22T07:55:00.010-05:00

Greetings. Welcome to my blog. My website (http://www.william-erwin-artist.com/) is for my art. This blog is for my ideas, comments, opinions and those of my guests.

WARNING: Republicans and Religiots*** are welcome but you might read something that shocks, offends or annoys you, since I am a gay, raving liberal Democrat.

WARNING #2: I make up words. You won't find any of those in a dictionary. Religiot is my word for a militant, hate-filled born-again Christian, or any religious zealot regardless of brand name. I am a devout non-believer, and am proud of it. Another word is "rofi." Not a date drug, it stands for "retiree on a fixed income." I am Rofius, the Latin form, and a name I use often on the internet. I was born to be retired!

The pastel painting above is entitled "Little Pleasures." It depicts my love of food and drink, and the occasional cigarette. It contains many of the popular no-no's of modern health nuts--to wit, fat, alcohol and cigarettes. It may also shock or offend religiots, which is often a good thing.