Virtual Brush Box

Art of the outside world. “On January 28, 1958 at 1.58 pm the application for the very first LEGO brick patent was filed at the Danish Directorate for Patents and Trademarks.” LEGO: Celebrating the 64th LEGO® Brick Patent Day, Paxton, January 28, 2022.

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Note to self. Dragon body & tooth outline, hex #333333, 20% gray. Dragon border, #808080, 50% gray. While green is the traditional color for dragons, a big green D was too much college flashback. Go Big Green!

Onwards!
Katherine

Do we have fairies? This is New York City. We have everything.

You’re expecting Central Park, aren’t you? Greenery. Trees. Water fae in the Bethesda Fountain. Nope. I say again, this is New York. We have rat fairies. We have fairies who live in elevator shafts. They are really loving the new supertall buildings.

First off, we don’t use the word fairy in public. Too much baggage. Especially in the city that is home to The Stonewall Inn. Gotta represent.

You also can’t use the word elves. As soon as you do, people get all Tolkien and expect a tall, beautiful person with excellent hair and the wisdom of the ages in their eyes. Pratchett was closer, “Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder … Elves are terrific. They beget terror.” But, he goes too far the other way. The New York fae aren’t good or bad. They just are.

Well, if I had to give them an identity as a group, I’d say they are agents of chaos. They admire it. They instigate it. Is it any wonder they like the Big Apple?

Second, that part about not liking iron? That’s just PR so you won’t see them coming.

What size are they? What size is your imagination? Small enough to get in anywhere. Big enough to cause trouble.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Sure, they will snarl traffic, or lock a door, or make you late to work. Computers might have been invented as toys for the fae to mess with. But they are not blood-thirsty. It’s not night of the Living Fae out there. Some tribes are meaner than others. Depends on the group. Plus, the tone of a tribe can change over time.

That’s a large part of what I do. Walk around, keep an eye on things. Notice if the chaos is becoming too much, or too vindictive. Listen to the mood of the crowds. As Agent K said, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.” Ever seen what unlocalized high-pitched sounds can do to a crowd? It’s not pretty. Guess who is good at sounds and lights and smells?

New York gets a lot of tourists. They aren’t as much of a problem as you might think. They don’t see. Or if they do, they just put it down to NY weirdness. Same with the Connecticut commuters. If they do see something weird, they tell themselves it’s another as a reason to be glad they moved to the suburbs. (Pause to shudder.) We are more likely to hear stories from the outer parts of the city, the places were people have lived a while. It takes a time to see.

Discovery? We use the theory of hide in plain sight. Go ahead and tell someone. Who’s gonna believe you? Well, the world is vast and weird. People with get behind you. CNN won’t be among them. Film something? Sure. You might even get an award for your CGI work.

Graffiti. They love graffiti. All of it. Gang tags. Urban art. Commercial murals. Not a fan of billboards. Never have been. I spend a lot of my time walking around looking at what is on the walls. You can get a good sense of a neighborhood from what’s on the wall, both what is there from the humans, and what is there not from the humans.

A lot of what I’ve been talking about is Manhattan. Central Manhattan, that’s my patch. There’s a fellow who has the southern part of the island, from the Village to Wall Street, and a woman who has the entire north section, from Columbia University to the Cloisters. You have to know your area to be able to tell what is different. Very territorial your urban fae. Go a dozen blocks and you are dealing with a whole new crowd.

It’s not a matter of footage. It varies. Some places we can’t find any sign of them. Then, there is a few blocks in the Bronx that has the highest density of f … don’t use the f-word … highest density of supernatural beings of anywhere in the city. I’ll find them infesting living in one building but not another that is exactly the same size with the exactly the same amenities, or lack thereof. We have no idea why.

Whenever we have organizational meetings, we all bring food to swap. As with the rest of New York, the fae like their food. We all make a habit of leaving food in certain places. A bribe? An offering? Protection money? Whatever you wanna call it, food seems to keep the situation ticking along.

I bring bagels from Zabar’s. The fellow from downtown brings macarons from Aux Merveilleux de Fred. Yeah, they have a midtown store as well, sometimes the two of us bring the same thing. Someone always wants them. Those suckers are good. It can be really hard not to nibble the mechandise. If I have the money, I try to bring extra for the humans. But I digress. Has to be in the bag. The fae like their labels.

My job? I’m on the books as city inspector. What do I actually do? Think of me as somewhere between a diplomat and pest control.

Awareness of the outside world. Viewbug: A Fantasy World Photo Contest Winners

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Giants’ Chair
Shelby County Arts Council
Columbiana AL USA
January 2024

Technical Details

Chair. f/9.0, 1/100 sec., 20.0 mm, ISO 100. Manual mode & auto-focus.

Post production. Resized, border, & watermark. Border colors, gray for project, yellow for Nikon. [Photo Safari The First], [Quarry, Photography, Things I Forgot]

Same place. Separate trip. [Wind, Photography]

Links

Nelson Grice Art, artist’s website.

SCAC: Nelson Grice Public Sculpture Installation, Dyess 2021.

SCAC: Nelson Grice, photo of artist.

Shelby Country Reporter: New sculptures help define Columbiana’s place in history, Mims 2021.

Trip Advisor: KHP, third & fourth photo of this set are chairs from the Giant’s Table at the 1978 World Championships & a plaque about same.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Beyond Ships: INSIDE VIEW: KEEPING ON GOOD TERMS WITH THE ENVIRONMENT, A conversation with Environmental Compliance Officer Ariadna Mayoral of QUEEN MARY 2, by Richard H. Wagner.

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Friend Carol takes us on a tour of horses found during a recent voyage aboard the Queen Mary 2. Welcome Carol.

Trans-Atlantic Champion, The story of Papyrus.

No looking back. Cunard agents helped emigrants plan their trip and book their passage.

Two from the Verandah Restaurant

Comparing the size of Cunard ships to various buildings.

“Aurora Borealis,” verre églomisé glass mural, 5.5 feet high x 10 feet wide, one of four large scale works commissioned by Cunard for luxury cruise ship Queen Mary 2. Designs by Christianson Lee Studios are gilded and engraved on the reverse side of glass in gold leaf.” CLS: Verre Eglomisé Cunard QM2 Wall Murals D12

“These are from the hallway between the Grand Lobby and the Britannia Restaurant on Deck 2. There are six, with each representing a continent, with horses on Europe and America; I know Africa has a zebra, not a horse, but figured I’d include it anyway.” Carol.

“They have walkways on the lower decks with images describing what happened with Cunard’s ships during various wars, which is where I found the one with the Lusitania. The next two are more images near a stairway, and the last is in an elevator.” Carol.

Vicarious travel for the win!

Links

Cunard: Queen Mary 2 Luxury Cruise Ship

“RMS Queen Mary 2 (QM2) is a British transatlantic ocean liner. She has served as the flagship of Cunard Line since succeeding Queen Elizabeth 2 in 2004. As of 2024, Queen Mary 2 is the only ocean liner in service.” Wiki: Queen Mary 2

“The category does not include ferries or other vessels engaged in short-sea trading, nor dedicated cruise ships where the voyage itself, and not transportation, is the primary purpose of the trip.” Wiki: Ocean liner

Beyond Ships Art: The Art of Queen Mary 2

“Another favorite pastime was horse racing … The way it worked was that dice were rolled for each ‘horse,’ and they advanced across the room.” Luxury Liner Row: RMS Queen Mary Race Horse

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Ex Urbe: Tools for Thinking About Censorship, Ada Palmer, January 21, 2024.

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We were able to get out for our daily walks most days of the cold weather by going out in the middle of the day. Everyone was home because weekend, MKL holiday, or ice storm. [The Cold Is Coming, Cold Snap, Phase II]

Mornings were right out.

We learned a few things.

For a morning walk, 28oF is okay; 25oF is too cold.

For a mid-day walk, better to be in the sun with a slightly colder thermometer. Technically, the warmest part of the day was around 3 pm, but that put our path in the shade. Going out just before/after the noon hour was brisk but sunny.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Bham Wiki: Hoover Country Club.

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Awards Banquet
American Saddlebred Horse Association of Alabama
Hoover Country Club
Birmingham AL USA
20 January 2024

Me
Academy Driving – 1st of 1
Academy Showmanship – 3rd of 3
Academy Equitation – 3rd of 3

Stepping Stone Farm
High Point Academy Rider, Adult (not me, person in Walk Trot)
High Point Performance Rider, Junior
High Point Performance Barn

“”Am I looking for two local shows in order to scramble onto the bottom of the points ladder of the Adult Academy division so that I have somewhere amusing to go in the depths of January?” [Lesson Thoughts, August 2023]

“The plan was to ride in three shows … If I had come up with this plan earlier, I could have done a smaller fun show rather than one of the big shows.” [The Red Queen Returns, Show Report, Alabama Charity Championship Horse Show 2023]

Did I go to Alabama Charity as a third show to qualify for year-end in driving? Absolutely. Shows usually have only one driving class. I needed three classes; therefore I needed three shows. What if there hadn’t been a year-end carrot? I would have talked myself out of going. The labor and expense is not insignificant, even with someone else taking care of the horse. I’m glad I went. So, I’m glad the lovely, fluffy, year-end carrot was there to lure me in.

Academy Driving was the first division announced, so they didn’t have the slide show going. [A Last Look Back at 2023, Driving photo from here]

Photos of me by Coach Courtney. Why do I have such a goofy expression? Same as last year. I’m starting to think of this as my banquet face. [Dinner and Ribbons, ASHAA Banquet for the 2022 Show Year]

Will I do this again in 2024 for the 2025 banquet? That is not the plan. Twice is enough. Time to move on. Grow. Try new things. Sounds good, doesn’t it? I fully admit that I may weaken when the summer shows come around.

By “this” I mean doing the minimum number of shows with an eye toward year-end awards and the banquet. I’m open to grand & marvelous adventures that end up garnering year-end awards. I have no idea what such adventures would look like. But I digress.

List of shows attended [Saddlebreds of 2023]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Per article, extreme temps are deadly & should be given the same attention as other weather events. CCN Sports: NFL’s policy over cold-weather games questioned after fans treated for hypothermia and frostbite at Chiefs-Dolphins game, Morse, January 20, 2024.

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[Winter Wonderland] repost

Per usual, I am writing this before the weekend. By the time it sees the light of day on Monday, we will have been through the second half of our bout of severe-for-us weather. Two nights of teens, one day of not-above-freezing. Not quite as cold as round one, and without benefit of ice. As my husband said, it will be *%#* cold, but it won’t be *%#*, *%#* cold. [The Cold Is Coming]

Meanwhile.

Water. Carrying hot water to the barn. So much water. So many buckets. We actually started before the cold, to be sure they were as hydrated as possible going in. Nervous? Nous? (Twitch. Shudder.)

Blankets. We replaced their Rambo blankets with updated versions. We figure it bought us about 10o. Rodney wants to know what took us so long.

Drips. Remembering to drip a faucet. Remember that hearing a drip is a good thing. This is house water. Barn water has been drained for the duration.

How are the horses taking it?

Shenanigans! In frozen mud!

Milton: I left this nonsense behind in Canada.

Onwards!
Katherine