by Marty Coleman | Mar 12, 2013 | Born Day - 2013, Jo Brand |
Any way you slice it, today is day #2 of Happy Born Day week!
Vicious vs Kind
We in the western developed world are not usually reminded so viciously of death as they are where disease and war ravage nations with impunity.
We are lucky in that birthdays are the kindest way of setting in front of us our own march to mortality, that we will die.
Depression vs Cake
Sound depressing? Yes and no. Yes, we will die and that thought can be a bummer. But then again no, because it also tells us that while we are alive we should eat the dang cake already! The cake may be a real cake, but it can also be a metaphorical cake.
Eat from life, take a hold of what you want, or stretch out your hand and reach for it until you can take hold. It won’t always be there, YOU won’t always be there. Don’t wait.
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Drawing and commentary © 2019 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Jo Brand, 1957 – not dead yet, English comedian
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Physiology question from yesterday answered
Question: How many years does it take for your body to create an entirely new skeleton?
Answer: It takes 7 years for a whole new set of cells to replace the prior set of cells that make up your skeleton.
Geography question from yesterday answered
Question: What country has the longest living humans, on average (life expectancy)?
Answer: the Principality of Monaco in Europe. The average age people live to is 89 years. The second highest average is found in the island nation of Macau, where the average is 84 years.
Monaco
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 11, 2013 | Born Day - 2013, Satchel Paige |
It’s the birth of BORN DAY week!
The Old Were Once Young, Perhaps.
Have you ever met someone you felt was never young? They are the ones who have always been old looking, acting, thinking and/or doing? I have. Most people who seem to be old before their time were probably young once. They probably played in the mud, built forts out of cushions and tried to get around the entire house without touching the floor because it was lava.
These Kids Today
But you would never know it from looking at or hearing them speak now. What do they look like now? They look like someone so contained, so prim and proper, that you can’t imagine them without a business suit on, or without a scowl on their face. They are concerned with everything being seen as perfect; nothing garish or loud or too funny or possibly controversial. They won’t like anything that culturally came after they were about 15 years old. They won’t approve of the youth today, even if they are among the youth of today. They will put great emphasis on doing the right thing, and the right thing will always be something that rocks no boats and ruffles no feathers. Nothing should stand out and if it does they will make sure the world knows it is not approved of.
It’s not the gradual aging that brings wisdom, love and an ironic smile about how life is. It’s the premature aging that comes from judgment, fear and moral self-righteousness. It’s ugly and depressing to see. It’s bad enough to be around a person like that, it must be torture to actually be someone like that.
Remembering Forward
Do you want to avoid that? Then remember back and remember forward. Remember back to your youth. The world did not collapse when you acted like a 10 year old. Why? because you WERE a 10 year old and that was ok. Many of the things a 10 year old did had nothing to do with right and wrong, it had to do with joy. Joy in discovery, make believe, humor, laughter and silliness. And then remember forward to right before your death and let’s pretend that moment is right now. What will you regret? Laughing and playing and being silly with your friends? I doubt it. I bet you will regret NOT doing those things when you had the chance.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who acts younger than he is and is proud of it.
Quote by Satchel Paige, who pitched in Major League Baseball until he was in his 60s (or so they say, he never really did know his exact birthday).
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Physiology Question of the Day
How many years does it take for your body to create an entirely new skeleton?
Geography Question of the Day
What country has the longest living humans on average?
Come back tomorrow for the answers
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 10, 2013 | My Studio/Office |
I have a reporter coming over tomorrow so I have been cleaning up my office and studio. I realize I have never shown the Napkin Kin what my work space looks like so here you go. This is my office, where I do most of my work.
When you walk in my office, this is what you would see first.
Office with Cat
The painting over the futon is an acrylic painting, a self portrait from the 90’s called ‘Man of Color with Black and White Vibrations’. It’s an old foosball game table I appropriated for the painting. The drawing in back to the left is from the 80s and was done in Prismacolor colored pencils. The table and lamp are both 1950s era furniture I inherited from my parents. The futon was my ex-wife’s and the cat is Mayru, found by my daughter Chelsea way back in about 2002 or so.
Office Space
Turn around once you are in the office and this is what you would see, my desk and work area. I actually do my drawing in my office, not in my studio. My studio is for larger projects in drawing, photography and photo-collage while my office is perfectly arranged to allow for the drawing, scanning, researching, writing, social media and publishing that I do each day.
My dad’s roll top desk
I have had my dad’s roll top desk for many years. It’s one heavy mother to move but luckily it comes apart. Obviously I can’t close the top with the monitors on the desk but that is ok, I never did even when they weren’t there. To the right of the desk you can see a small dresser. It was my grandfather’s. If you look right above the keyboard you can see a gray pad. That is my Wacom tablet. I have had one for about 20 years now and can’t possibly imagine doing any of my computer work without one. Note that the monitors are up on volumes of the Encyclaepia Brittanica, 1985 edition I believe. My desktop computer is a Mac Pro, about 5 years old now. It’s my 3rd Mac. The first 2 each lasted 7 years before I retired them. I have had one problem in that entire time and it was resolved immediately. The scanner I use for the napkins is off to the right. On the left (where the napkin is) is where I do my drawing.
Drawing Area
Here is what my drawing area looks like after I am done. By the end of a drawing the pull out is covered with between 15-30 markers of various sorts. Today I used 3 different makes of markers, plus two different black ultra fine sharpies, a newer one for the actual drawing then an older one that is has less ink in it for the dots and thinner lines for the wings of the butterfly, the knuckles of the hand and the freckles on the face.
The test napkin with random marks on it was new at the start of the drawing this morning. By the end of the week it will be filled to the gills with marks and I will start to turn it into a new ‘Bodyless ghirl ghosts’ drawing, finding faces and a background then writing a short story that goes with it.
My quote and reference books
Behind my monitors are my quote books. I use them most every day. I do also find a lot of quotes online and have a number of favorite quote sites, but I like the books best. The first one on the left is from the 1930s and is one of my favorites. I find a lot of quotes that can’t be found anywhere else in that one. If you ever find an old quote book, get it for me, ok? The photo is of my 3 bio daughters, Connie, Chelsea and Rebekah. The card next to the pic is from the ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. It is always a good reminder (not read often enough) of how to stay on task and moving towards my goals.
Here are my markers. I first started drawing the napkins for my daughters with simple thin black markers. When I started adding color I just bought consumer grade markers, Sargent Art and PaperMate Flair, that you can see at the top on the right. Eventually I moved on to the Bic markers on the right. I used them exclusively for a while, slowly adding in the colored Sharpies you can see on the left with the gray barrels and the colored tops. Over the last 2 years I have increasingly turned to Prismacolors (in black, on the left) and Copic Sketch markers (the white ones immediately above the Prismacolors). I line the drawings with the ultra thin black Sharpies. I sometimes use SRX Metallic ColorSharp markers for shiny images.
My napkins are typical store-bought lunch napkins. I have been using the ones from Target the past few packages, they have a certain stiff or starched type of feel that I like, absorbent but not as absorbent as others. I store them in plastic bins, by year. In the pic you can see the bottom bin is filled with files but the one above that is years 1998-2004 (the years the girls were in school and I was drawing the napkins for them). Above that is 2008-2009, then the top 4 bins are years 2010-2013. As you can see I have thousands of napkin drawings by now. And yes, they are for sale!
Small Bookcase
Here is one of the bookcases in my office. You can get a feel for what I like to read (mostly non-fiction) by reading the titles. Most but not all the books I have read. The bookcase was originally made for ‘The Great Books’ that are now owned by Chelsea. I sanded, restained and varnished the bookcase many years ago.
The Big Bookcase
This is my big bookcase. I have had it for 30+ years. It’s filled mostly with art books. There is also a smattering of reference & history books as well as stray non-fiction books that didn’t make it into the other bookcase. The prints on the wall are Matisse cutouts that I got in France at the Matisse Museum in Nice. The little ‘Bless this Mess’ rock on the left was my mothers, always above the sink at home. The newspaper is a mounted version of the Tulsa World Living Section article about my Velveteen Women exhibition at Living Arts of Tulsa in January of 2012.
And there you have it, a little look into my space! Any questions?
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 8, 2013 | Bodyless Ghirl Ghosts - 2012-2013 |
Last we saw the Bodyless Ghirl Ghosts they were either getting electrocuted by a fence or trying on hats. This is what happened to the hat tryer oners.
The Irish Pub
While 7 of the Ghirl Ghosts stayed behind at the dairy, trying to milk cows then getting electrocuted, the other 7 had gone hat shopping back in town. They had all ended up crying about the hats and and the saleswoman being lonely. They invited the saleswoman out for a drink and they all went to the local Irish pub where they found two from the other group floating around.
The pub was Irish because it was owned by a Irishman who had come to visit his sister in America 10 years ago but couldn’t get on his flight home because his name was on the terrorist watch list. His name was Laddie O’Sama. He tried to tell the airport people he wasn’t THAT O’Sama but they didn’t believe him because he had a beard and talked with a funny accent. He stayed with his sister and eventually gave up trying to go home. He got a job being Irish in a Irish pub that had no Irishman in it and eventually inherited the pub from the Bulgarian lady who owned it and thought of him as a son. Except she always want to have sex with him. Which he did only once.
Kissing Crazy
The ghirl ghosts and the hat sales lady went to the pub and had many drinks. Even though they have no bodies, bodyless ghirl ghosts can get drunk because the alcohol circles around in their brain before it spills on the floor. The sales lady got drunk and kissed Greta, the sexy ghirl ghost. Greta was drunk and kissed her back and all the other ghirl ghosts gasped because they hadn’t realized they could kiss people who weren’t dead and had bodies. They thought they could only kiss each other, which they did once in a while when they were bored.
Once they saw that they could kiss anyone they went kissing crazy. Penelope, the Ghirl Ghost leader, kissed 4 men sitting at a table watching bowling on TV. They all said her lips were like marshmallows, which was not surprising since ghirl ghosts are like marshmallows everywhere, not just their lips. All the other ghirl ghosts watched her kissing to see how to do it with real people then Sharita kissed the bartender, Ethel kissed the dishwasher and Betty kissed 3 girls who all had on red lipstick, which got all over her lips and cheeks.
What They Saw in the Alley
Pretty soon they were all kissed out and ready to go back to the hotel. They looked around and didn’t see the saleslady, who they wanted to say goodbye to. They also didn’t see the bartender anywhere. They wanted to leave out the back door, but they needed someone to open it for them since they don’t have hands. They got the dishwasher to do it and they each gave him a bit fat marshmallow kiss as they went out the door. He had never been kissed in his whole life so he was very happy as he scrubbed pots the rest of the night.
The back door led to a back alley. As they came out the little alcove into the alley they were stopped in their tracks. Well, they don’t really make tracks since they have no feet, but they were stopped anyway. Before them they saw the the saleslady and the bartender kissing! Not only that but they were doing things besides kissing with parts that the bodyless ghirl ghosts didn’t have. The ghirl ghosts stared for a long time saying nothing because ghirl ghosts like to watch, which is understandable considering they can’t do much besides watching and floating around.
Temptation
Penelope whispered, “That’s enough watching, let’s leave them alone.” Sharita said, “Can’t we wait to see if she…” “NO”, said Penelope, “That will just make it harder to go to sleep.” Then all the ghirl ghosts floated silently passed the two lovers and went back to the hotel where they watched an Infomercial about acne medicine before floating off to slumber land.
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To read more of their adventures go to the ‘Bodyless Ghosts’ series in the drop down menu in the sidebar.
Drawing and story by Marty Coleman, who has never tried to kiss a marshmallow.
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Literary Question from two days ago answered
Question: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” is the first line of what novel?
Answer: ‘1984’ by George Orwell, published in 1949.
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 7, 2013 | Compliments & Complications - 2013, Mark Twain |
It’s a compliment just to be nominated for Best Napkin Drawing of Day #4 of Compliment Week!
Compliments – The Love Hate Tango
I started this series because I had a conversation with a friend in which she said she didn’t know how to take compliments very well. She thought she was alone in that regard and I assured her that is not true, that a LOT if not most people, especially women, are not at all comfortable or believing of compliments given to them.
While I started to look for quotes and ideas relating to compliments I did indeed come across many who were also not comfortable with praise and compliments. But I also came across many who love compliments, live for them, get sustenance from them and continually hope for them. Mark Twain was one and this quote is an example. It seems egotistical but I think he meant it tongue in cheek, a self-deprecating comment about his own ego.
The Compliment Pool
But there is another way to take this quote. Perhaps it can be interpreted not as wanting more ego stroking, but wanting more specificity. The woman in my drawing is saying ‘nice font’ while reading a profound book. She is staying shallow and superfluous. noticing just the surface, when there is a whole world of depth she has completely ignored.
The Deep End
What about you? When you give a compliment, do you really say what you truly admire, or do you say something generic and forgettable? If you want your compliments to have more power the focus in on more than ‘You are handsome’ or ‘nice work’. Dig down a bit and see if you can’t be more specific. Why is he handsome? How about ‘You have a great jaw line.’ Why was her work nice? Can you say ‘You did a fantastic job negotiating with that client.’ instead?
I can imagine Mark Twain meaning it that way. Perhaps he wanted a compliment that dug down a bit deeper, that reflected a deeper understanding on the part of the person giving the compliment.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
Quote by Mark Twain, whom I compliment on his vast array of quotes about compliments.
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Compliment of the Week
Judge Nicki Minaj’s compliment to American Idol contestant Tenna Torres (wearing the outfit below) – “I like your hair, I like your boobs, too.”
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