Filed under: Bloggidy Blog | Tags: absolutely art, johnny depp movie, old timey cars, shoes in trees
With the Etsy store being so busy I’ve scarcely had time to clown around. I also haven’t been sitting around drinking absinthe and thinking up stuff to blog about. Sometimes that’s where the trillion dollar ideas come from. Not to get off track or anything ,but, as I’m writing this I’m watching The Colbert Report on tv. Out of the corner of my eye and I just saw a Nutri Systems commericial and noticed that Larry the Cable Guy is now one of their spokespeople. That’s messed up.
Anyway, as I was saying, not a lot of blog ideas right now. Maybe I’ll think of something as I explain these photos.
Erika came over to the shop on Monday morning ’cause she wanted to gawk at the Johnny Depp movie people who were up filming around the capitol building. I had to go to Walgreens on the square anyway to buy tampons and nicotine gum so I went along. Me and Erika kind of have this thing–since we’re the only self-employed people we know if one of us gets an idea to do something the other has to go along…because we can. No matter how your business is doing you always have to revel in the fact that, since you have no peckerhead boss, you can blow off work at almost any time with very few consequences. Self-employment can be a real grind sometimes. If you don’t take advantage of that one super perk you might as well hang it up.
The square looked about the same save for the presence of a lot of modern day police officers and old timey cars.
There were guys in fedoras all over the place too…waiting for a cue or something. Only one dame as far as I could see.
Hopefully they’ll CGI out the No Parking sign and the ugly garbage can.
Moving right along…here is a picture of a wound on Erika’s head:
She received the injury while working on a metal sign for a local gallery called Absolutely Art. As she ground on the letter “R” in art the Stoughton High School marching band marched by the forge where she was working. (Stoughton is a fairly small town with, apparently, only so many places to march.) The band distracted her and she lost control of the grinder wanging herself in the forehead. No lasting effects from the accident unless you count that unnatural fascination she has with that metal chicken.
Do people tie shoes together and huck them up into trees where you live?
They do that here a lot, though, this is definitely the greatest number of shoes I’ve seen in a single tree. Folks also like to toss them up so the pairs dangle from power lines. Believe it or not, I’ve spoken to several people who have formed theories that attach significance to this behavior-that the shoes serve as markers for houses where drug activity is going on–that sort of thing. I just think that the kids today have too many shoes. Sometimes the simplest theory is the most likely.
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What movie is it that Johnny Depp is working on there? Just curious… ?!
I’ve heard he is going to be Barnabas Collins in a remake of Dark Shadows (and I’m appalled, I LOVE Johnathan Frid and I can’t picture the guy who played Michael Jackson in the Chocolate Factory and Keith Richards in Pirates of the Carribean being able to pull off the J. Frid/L. Nimoy/T. Curry/Bogart/Raymond Burr dark&sinister&solid&craggy thing… it’s worse casting than Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire!)
They need somebody sufficiently roughhewn and substantial for Barnabas. A solid citizen. Some gravity and brooding dark heaviness. Depp is hugely popular and very gifted, but more of a lightweight (as in literally. His demeanor and build and personality.)
Doesn’t mean I don’t like him, but Edward Scissorhands and Benny & Joon and Jack Sparrow are more his style. He’s quirky creepy rather than solidly sinister and somber, and villainheros like Barnabas Collins have to have some weight and substance. (This will be like having Will Smith play Mr. T.)
Well, that’s MY opinion! O.k., now you’re going to tell me Dark Shadows IS the movie they’re filming… (right?)
ANNIE
Comment by Annie :) May 8, 2008 @ 8:36 pmThe shoe tree is amusing. Wonder what the squirrels will do with them?
Comment by phil May 9, 2008 @ 6:46 am35+ years ago (when I was in grad school at USC), the L.A. gangs threw shoes over power lines to mark their territory boundaries. Now drunk frat boys in Mt. Pleasant (MI) throw shoes over power lines because … well, because they’re drunk frat boys.
Hi Annie-
I guess the movie is called “Public Enemies” and Depp plays John Dillinger. Here’s a linky-doo http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/03/18/first-look-johnny-depp-as-john-dillinger-in-michael-manns-public-enemies/
Seems like a departure from the bizarro roles but then again I don’t know much about John Dillinger. Maybe he was a real freakshow.
Comment by cathylybarger May 9, 2008 @ 10:43 amHi Phil. Perhaps the shoes can provide nesting sites for rare birds. I smell yet another urban legend! Also, re: gangs tossing shoes 35 years ago-that is pretty interesting. Does the U offer a sociology class revolving around this topic? I’m surprised I haven’t run into someone who wrote a thesis on this. Everyone’s an expert around here.
Comment by cathylybarger May 9, 2008 @ 10:50 amSo…did you get to see Johnnie? I have secretly been in love with him since Edward ScissorHands. It drives my husband nuts! Everyone has to have a fantasy about something….lol!
Comment by Rosanne May 9, 2008 @ 2:41 pmAre you making any more babyfish? I missed the boat on the first batch you did.
Hi Roseanne-
I don’t think he was around but then again I wasn’t really looking for him because I did not know that it was his movie they were filming until after I got home. (Erika said they were filming something and she didn’t want to gawk by herself.)Even though I’m really out of touch with what’s going on in Madison but I think I would have heard something if Johnny Depp was going to be here. Everybody loves Johnny Depp (at least a little) and much less interesting things than his being here make the news.
I predict more baby fish by Sunday. I put one little green one up today but that was it. WOrktime got cut short yesterday because Lucy the iguana wanted to come out of the cage for a run around the store. She needed a toenail trim really bad, too, so we got that done. I’ll be back making fish tommorrow and I’ll have some up by Sunday if all goes well.
Comment by cathylybarger May 9, 2008 @ 4:09 pmOk I’ll be looking for fish later this weekend. I also have to comment on the shoes in the tree thing. Either you guys in the city are wierd or us country hicks are way out of touch. I’ve seen the occassional shoes in telephone wires, but none in the trees. But then again I don’t have a reason to be looking in trees for shoes. They could be tying worse things than shoes together…lol! Now I will be watching the trees, hopefully there won’t be a lot of traffic…
Comment by Rosanne May 9, 2008 @ 5:03 pmGood, it ISN’T Dark Shadows (they have time to come to their casting senses.)
O.k., I checked out the movie link… looks like a good one (I really like all the cast!) and Depp looks pretty believable in the role, or in the pic there anyway (and I never said I didn’t like him or his work, I really DO, actually, just that there are some roles I have more trouble picturing him in. Like my favorite vamp, B. Collins. Grizzly Adams would be another. (!) But Dillinger, no problem! In fact, I could see him in the Beatty role in ‘Bonnie & Clyde’…. imagine Renee Zellweger as Dunaway.) ?!
Somewhere in his computer (and he’s on travel till the end of the month, sorry,) Bill has photos of the most awesome and amazing shoe tree ever (I swear!) FULL of shoes, boots, you name it! And it was along a tiny bleak unpaved small road that cut across middle Oregon from I-5 over to the coast (not the same one where those people got lost & blizarded, fortunately.) Anyway, I PROMISE when he gets back I will send that photo! There were some red boots on that one that I’d have climbed the tree and stolen (if it weren’t obvious they wouldn’t fit me, darn it.)
Say, if you get a chance, you should make Depp a famous CathMonster bead (a Jack Sparrow type?!) and somehow present it to him… I’m sure he’d LOVE it (and they say he’s very gracious about gifts and fans! A pic with him & the bead would be a major coup on Etsy!)
On YouTube there’s a small clip of him on ‘Vicar of Dibley’ (I LOVE britcoms!) that is funny… she’s gushing over him and he’s being awkwardly polite. He looks a lot like there in the Dillinger photos (sort of subdued & pale, not so wild and crazy.) Well, just FYI.
ANNIE
Comment by Annie :) May 9, 2008 @ 6:13 pmThis just in–those fish are going to be up tommorrow instead of today. Why I think I can accurately plan my activities one day to the next I will never know.
Annie- We do have some stellar art work at the house made from a Johnny Depp calendar and a flyer from the Jehova’s Witnesses but that’s about as much JD themed art as I’m going to do.
Comment by cathylybarger May 11, 2008 @ 1:09 pmWell, not so much a JD themed bead, but one that JD might LIKE…
I think your entire face bead group gallery as shown on your one page there looks like his entire pirate’s crew, actually! One in particular looks VERY much like my friend Jerry, also known as Gerard J. Reyes, also known as “Tearlach”, one of Jack’s crew in the 1st and 2nd JD Pirates Of The Carribean movies. (Yes, Jerry is a starving actor who was lucky enough to be in that, even if he has less than 30 seconds “Face Time” in them.)
By the way, do you wonder if JD has ever made much of the fact that his initials are the same as Jack Daniels? (Just wondering!)
ANNIE
Comment by Annie :) May 11, 2008 @ 2:53 pmAt first I thought you meant a JD-esque mask type bead. Something like that usually comes out pretty uncomplimentary despite my best intentions. Unless you’re there to explain it, I think it would be hard for someone to be enthused by it.
I dig the pirate crew comparison to the index page. I should enhance that by having word bubbles saying “Yar” coming out of their mouths.
I once knew a guy who had a dog named “JD”. While you might think it was a Jack Daniels reference, it actually stood for “Just Dog”. I’m sure the Jack Daniel’s reference crosses the owner’s, and perhaps the dog’s mind pretty much whenever anyone says it.
Comment by cathylybarger May 12, 2008 @ 1:38 amSpeaking of which, where IS that multibead group “head shot” one now? (I LOVED that photo! I should’ve copied it to show Jerry, but it never occurred to me you’d take it down?! The many faced several row mug shot?)
Hey, here’s another bead idea… you know how the JD “Jack Sparrow” character has all those beads in his hair/beard? You could make up some sets of beads and refer to them as what he would use to enhance his mane if only he knew that you had them! (Marketing tip!)
“Just Dog”, huh? One of the women I used to work with had a dog called deeohjee (d-o-g).
Good luck with Etsy, looks like a LOT of folks are migrating from eBay (think eBay will learn their lesson, or are they just too big for their own good?) ?!
ANNIE
Comment by Annie :) May 12, 2008 @ 10:54 pmI guess the multi head shot is gone because it was my banner for the Ebay store and that no longer exists.
Don’s got a bunch of beard beads that he no longer needs because he has no beard. I could send JD those or easier yet would be photoshopping them into his beard.
Comment by cathylybarger May 14, 2008 @ 12:22 pmNoooo….. you MUST post the multi head bead shot somewhere! SOON! I miss it! I want it! (Whaaaaahhhhh….)
Beard beads, great! Yeah, do that!
Comment by Annie :) May 16, 2008 @ 11:09 am