Deviant Art ...

I have a lot of problems with DA; that's no secret.  But recently, there was an image of a buxom elf, oozing pulchritudinous, and the caption was: Qualified Elf Looking for a Party.

Qualified Elf?  It was forcefully brought home to me that these people are not native English speakers.  They're not English speakers of any sort; they manage to communicate in English solely for the purpose of promoting their artwork!

Just as musicians get fixated on the music they're creating, and writers get tunnel vision about their ẅriting projects (and create Blogs to talk about them (ahem)), so graphic artists are fixated I'm their creations, and the image in their minds, which they want to make visible.  And being foreign (I shouldn't say that, but from my point of view, that's what they are, and it's amazing that their communication skills are this good, honestly) they have to strain to even have a reasonable shot at getting their caption moderately close to what they had in mind. 

I had commented on the original post ("Qualified Elf" etc) saying:  "Qualified!  That's a whole different approach!"

Soon the artist came back with: Sometimes I think make the wrong word choice.  I mean competent. 

I replied:  Skilled, perhaps?

Within a few hours, the caption read: Skilled Elf, Looking for a Party.

I'm both pleased, and alarmed.  Why would a Skilled Elf be looking for a Party?  What horrible ideas are lurking in the subconscious of this crazy artist?  When he says Elf, does he mean prostitute?  Entertainer?  Party girl?

Scarlett Johanson

I feel pity for this attractive woman. 

She's quite attractive despite her large breasts, though some of the Fb advertisers—or, anyway, the people who place ads on Fb, who I assume are guys—approach the task of publicizing Scarlett as if she has absolutely nothing else going for her!  She's a good actress, and a fair mimic, and a good comedienne as well, something that can't be said of a lot of female actors.  I do think she's to blame for some of it; she seems to encourage the media focusing attention on her chest. 

Kay

The Story of Emily

Just last night I was reading an unfinished story of mine, which I had written when I was feeling much more grown up and sober.  (I mean, I am naturally a very sober person, who just gets popped into a zany mood occasionally.)

Sometimes I get into a state where I regard all my surroundings, and the whole world, really,  with rather distant benevolence, and look upon it with a mixture of amazed approval and sad disappointment.  It was on one of these occasions that I wrote the Emily story.  It isn't first person—I hadn't yet got comfortable with that style—but it follows Emily rather closely, and is most definitely from her point of view.

Emily is a college professor.  She lives with her former husband, who is sick.  He dies, early in the story, and she heads out West by herself.  Soon she finds herself rescuing a mother and daughter duo. 

Emily is, sort of, in the same mode of universal benevolence that I'm get into—or rather, she's approaching that state.  A lot of the story is the attitude of all three people to kids; the little girl meets kids at various campgrounds; the mother observes the daughter's interaction with her little friends; and Emily watches all of this.  Emily is childless, BTW.

Well, I'll either have to put in a massive piece of labor to complete the story properly, or just finish it any old how and upload it. 

K

Trains!

I wish I had more money to splurge!  I would so love to travel by train!  I've traveled by train in Britain, and short distances in the US, but I'd like to travel trans-continental.  But I know few people in California, and I'd hate to be a nuisance to them.  If I had money to splurge, I'd stay in a hotel, book tours, visit Disneyland ...

I visited Disneyland when I was little.   It was cute, and nostalgic.  I may not like what it has become.  I just say that only because I don't know in what direction it has gone. 

Kay

A Dancer For Our Time

Wow.

I was just scrolling through my Fcbk feed, when I saw this post of a video.  A woman was dancing ... it was one of the most gorgeous, energetic, athletic, graceful dancers I have ever seen.  Her name is Marta Bryła—don't ask me how to pronounce her last name—and when I searched on her name, she's described as a Polish actress.  She may be an actress, but she's the best at what she does: sort of highly expressive gymnastic dancing.

And her face!  It is truly the face of an angel.  I would have been so miserable if I had seen a second or two of her dance, and not seen the whole thing!  I'm going to try and get you a photo of her ...

OK, this photo captures her face very nicely.  It's a crazily expressive face, that's always scintillating through various—theatrical—emotions.  She was wearing a more conventional dance costume, a diaphanous dance dress, wearing which she did cartwheels and that sort of thing. 

It's her face with which I think I fell in love (not really; you know what I mean), though she definitely has the body of an angel.

Here's the video I saw: No time to Die.  In this dance, her face portrays mostly intense concentration, and the expression that most performers use to convey: "Pay attention now!"

Kay

An Idea for a New Character

Seeing how little progress I have made on the Elf story, this may not come to anything.  But, I'm thinking of a girl—maybe a little older, perhaps a woman—who loves animals. 

We probably all have a soft spot for animals—I certainly do!  But this girl has come to think that she loves animals more than her fellow-humans.  She doesn't want to be known to be an animal-lover; her town is being overrun by abandoned pets, and she fears that she might be persecuted for being animal- friendly. 

She has just two pets: a cat, and a dog.  The beginning of the story will be about how lonely she is.  Perhaps one of the pets is very old, and passes away, and her loneliness becomes almost unbearable. 

One of her characteristics (a unique feature) is her compassion.  She becomes furious at her fellow-citizens for creating this crisis of feral animals, and for her fear that drives her love for animals into hiding.  Every once in a while, she sees a litter of puppies, abandoned on the street, and she wants to rescue them, but public hostility to pets is so high that if she's seen, she'll be shunned. 

One day, she sees a woman, unconscious, on the side of the road.  This is different; helping people is still not seen as something as 'anti- social' as helping puppies.  She calls for help, and the woman is revived.  She tries to fade out of the picture, but the woman hunts her down, and expresses her gratitude. 

That's a far as I've got.  I've got some ideas, but they're still fairly vague!

Wow, I had forgotten that I had started a story about a lady professor at a college, whose boyfriend dies, leaving her his car.  But some company calls up and says that the car has to be returned.  The professor loses her temper, and drives off to California.

There's considerably more, but this story fragment is hard to summarize!

Kay

Butch Girls

I was going through my Deviant Art feed, and found that I was 'liking' mostly girls who were borderline butch.  I have nothing against this sort of girl, or woman really; it's not their 'butchness' or 'femmeness' that grabs my attention; I'm almost embarrassed to use those words—they seem to be words that were invented to help writers who focus on lesbian relationships in a sort of formulaic way.  I've met butch-style girls who are mean as hell, and other butch-style girls who are just adorable.  On the other hand, I've met femme women who are really cold and aloof, and other femmes who were really sweet.

I've recently begun a sort of regular activity, and there are guys and gals there, who are—for the most part—friendly and welcoming.  One of the women is an ultra-femme type girl, who always comes over and shares a smile and a friendly word.  I don't think she's looking for a relationship; she's in one already.  There are all types of women in the group—and guys, too—but hardly any romantic pairings. 

I'll stop here; I think I'll report some more on my observations once I have a few interesting ones to talk about!

Kay

P.S.  Kylie Welker!  This is a girl who wrestled for the University of Iowa ('Hawkeyes') team.  She looks totally adorable!  The best of luck, KW!

N.B. :  I don't mean to imply that Kylie is a butch at all!  That's her business completely, and I don't want to interfere with her life at all; life is hard enough for women, without the added complication of being—possibly erroneously—mistaken for someone who is queer.