Some new art.

I'm a cat guy.  You can thank my cat Marty McFly for that.  He's a stud.  I like other cats too: tigers, lions, ocelots etc. I've got more into tigers recently because of the stuff I've read recently while researching some things about saber-toothed cats for a book I'm writing, but may never finish.  I discovered this theory that the sabre-toothed cat possibly went extinct because of people.  And I learned that tigers may go extinct in our lifetime.  This is saddest thing ever.  Why are they in trouble?  Stupid people obviously.  We have hunted them for all kinds of stupid reasons, for furs, fertility medicines which don't work and for our own entertainment, namely the circus.

Circuses have been enslaving all kinds of wild animals.  I started reading about that too on one of my internet crawls (which is like a beer crawl, but instead of going from bar to bar, I go from site to site fueled not by alcohol, but my own endless curiosity).  While exploring about the history of circuses I started noticing the old posters that were used to advertise for them.  I loved them.  The color, the pop.  I wanted one and I wanted one with a tiger.  You may ask, but Ped doesn't that glorify the problem?  Wouldn't having a poster celebrate the cruelty that we did and do to tigers?  Perhaps, but I'm looking at it differently.  I pursued an old circus poster as reminder of what we did in the past, that we actually are responsible for our actions and that we need to conserve the natural world and what's left of it. And cause like I said before, I like tigers.

There are lots and lots of reprint posters out there.  I wanted something original.  Well original posters are expensive.  I'm talking more than a hundred bucks.  I've seen some greater than a thousand.   This is because of rarity due to the fact that they were made on the cheap and not to last.  They were made for advertising purposes in which they were just glued to walls where they would sit for a few weeks until someone came along and glued another poster on top.  Think of the advertising you would see on the boards around construction sites in the city.  This is why they are printed on cheap crappy paper, like newsprint, so they do last that long.  Many collectors buy these posters and have them mounted to canvas where they can be treated a little more roughly.

I searched some shops in the city and some estate sales (my Sunday alone-time past-time).  But I couldn't find any that I both liked and could afford.  So where do you go for stuff on the cheap?  Ebay, duh.  After several months of searching, I came across an original poster from 1952 being sold by someone who was selling a circus collection of a collector who recently passed away.  The poster was cheaper than normal because it was misprinted.  A defect.  I like defects though because they remind me of the process of making the poster.  You don't think about the process when the poster is in good form.  So I bid and won it for pretty cheap.  Since I didn't spend that much on it, I decided to frame it up nice and grown-up like.  I've provided a picture.  It makes me happy.  I think about the process of making it and I think about tigers.  Isn't that the point of art? To make you think?  To make you happy?

my new distraction...

Well baseball is over (well the Phils are over) and I'm barely over it.  It was heartbreaking.  I had such high hopes.  My whole life is all about hope it seems and not so much realization of hopes.  I just keep on hoping.  I'll survive I suppose and before you know it (probably next week), I'll start counting the days until next season.

I have had some of new free time open up in my life, both unfortunately and fortunately, and so I've decided to use my time maturely with self improvement.  It's time for Ped to continue to grow up.  So I've been working out some and exploring the arts.  Specifically, I've gotten into water color painting.  I'm terrible at it.  It probably doesn't help that water color is the harder of the painting styles.  I got inspired when I bought two small water color originals from my favorite website etsy.com from a super nice woman named Rachelle Levingston from SLC, Utah.  Pictures of the ones I bought are below.  I like buying original art.  It makes me feel good.  I get to fill my home with beautiful things while also supporting someone that is doing it for a living.  I also bought a cool hand carved owl thingy made from bark at the cranberry festival in Chatsworth, NJ this weekend.  Maybe at some point I'll post my own art on here, but don't hold your breath. 

Harry Potter can sing!!!

After an overwhelming semester of teaching, I now have time to blog again.  Yeeha.  Now what to blog about? hmm.

Oh yeah. 

Two weeks ago, my girlfriend and I went and saw a show on Broadway called, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  You may be wondering why, of all shows out there we chose that one.  Actually, let's be real.  If you're wondering, you don't know me at all!  I went to see Harry sing!  I'm a fan of Harry Potter and the franchise's star Daniel Radcliffe is currently staring in the Broadway show.  I wanted to see him in person. 

Truth be told, I had little expectations going in.  I've seen the show done a couple times and honestly it kinda bores me.  It's a little too classic Broadway for me.  I need edge, I need something new in my musicals (ie Rent, In the Heights).  Anyways, the production was a pleasant surprise.  Little Danny is a pretty good singer!  He's got kind of an angelic tenor tone.  It's not a strong voice, but it's smooth, on pitch and light.  On top of that he was a pretty good dancer and seemed very comfortable on stage.  I kinda felt proud of him.  I've watched the kid since he was 11 and now he's headlining on Broadway with confidence.  As far as the rest of the cast goes, the show, in my opinion, is carried by the men not so much the women.  Tony-nominated John Larroquette gives a pretty funny performance as does Christopher J. Hanke.  CNN stud, Anderson Cooper, makes a cool narrator.  The girls didn't really wow me.  I don't really get the Tony nom for Tammy Blanchard.  (Not that it matters because, I'm sure Book of Mormon will likely win everything)  Director and choreographer, Rob Ashford, improves on what he did with his previous revival Promises Promises.  Overall, the show is fun and a well spent night at the theater.  Go out see it, but be prepared to fight a million teenagers if you're hoping to get a Radcliffe autograph. (My attempt failed).

Only 60 days until Deathly Hallows part 2! What! What!

Exit Through the Gift Shop

You may tell from the background on my blog that I'm a fan of graffiti art.  Ok, let me rephrase, I'm a fan of "poppy" art and graffiti often falls in that category.  I in no way am in support of breaking the law or damaging public property for the sake of art, but I have become a fan of some particular "street" artists, who do both those things, Banksy and Shepard Fairy to name a few.  (Yeah, that's why I have so many Obey t-shirts)  Recently, I checked out the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop that basically highlights for the first time on film (as far as I can tell) these street artists and what and how they do the art they do.  It's really interesting!  To be honest, after seeing the film, I was a little inspired to make some art of my own, but I'll stick to written media for the sake of not getting arrested.  I recommend this doc for anyone interested in this new art form that is starting to get accepted in some of the more metropolitan areas of the world.  Below is a video of some of the bits and pieces of the film from its producers:

Let's try this

I started a blog because I have too many things I like to talk about, so there ya go.