I really want to come up with a funny, witty, fantastic blog post for this. But I am a complete zombie today. Please forgive me. This book isn’t so much about an artist as it is about art. The main character is an art dealer, and there are so many awesome works of art mentioned here. I was constantly looking them up while reading it.

Also, don’t go into this expecting Steve Martin comedy. You won’t find it. Steve Martin is way more than stand-up. (Did you know he plays really fantastic bluegrass?) He’s a super intelligent man, and it shows here.

Ok, that’s all the brain power I’ve got today. Have a good one!

A certain kind of person goes to New Orleans, they aren’t coming back. At least not with their heart intact. New Orleans can make a person, even or perhaps especially a non-native, feel permanently out of place wherever else on the map they choose to roam. I know this because it happened to me on my inaugural visit (and has been happening to me every time I’ve gone back since). The people in my life, they know better than to bring up New Orleans lest I pull them down a rabbit hole of brass band record catalogs and dreamy clouds of beignet sugar. My favorite description of New Orleans comes from The New Mastersounds song “Welcome to Nola”: “it ain’t that big and it sure as hell ain’t easy but if you eat fried chicken you gonna get a little greasy”. And well, one way of understanding the New…

I was grilling some burgers and hotdogs for my family on Thursday, and I ran up to the supermarket because I needed more buns, some potato salad, and other things that I never remember I ran out of the last time I had a cookout. I drove the three blocks to the market, hopped out of my car and was greeted by the sight of a middle-aged white man strapping a shotgun on his back and walking into the market just ahead of me. My initial reaction was irritation. Why is this guy bringing an apparently loaded firearm into the grocery store at 6pm on a Friday? Is he trying to intimidate people? Trying to make a political point? I wanted to go to the store manager and register a complaint, but I found it hard to call up my rational objections to carrying loaded guns in public places (objections…

Since being a nerd has become cool I don’t like it any more. Big glasses are no longer the indicator of a visual impairment caused by too much reading, and pasty skin is less likely caused by long hours spent in libraries, archives or labs. It’s more likely the result of an overpriced holiday in Finland and cleverly applied make-up.

It is now socially acceptable, even hip, to be seen sitting by yourself in a murky café reading Camus. It is even more so if you’re wearing a baggy jumper you found in a charity shop, while frantically scribbling notes into your Moleskin notebook or are indeed staring into your MacBook. Not even questionable personal hygiene or unkempt hair are a safe indicator that the person next to you is a borderline genius.

On the other hand, real nerds are now heading to the gym to fight the pen pusher’s…

http://vimeo.com/83094404

Above is a video of Dr. Christina Sanchez, a molecular biologist at Compultense University in Madrid, Spain, clearly explaining how THC (the main psychoactive constitute of the cannabis plant) completely kills cancer cells.

Not long ago, we published an article examining a case study recently published where doctors used cannabis to treat Leukemia, you can read more about that here (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/02/10/cannabis-helped-treat-leukemia-in-teenage-girl-doctors-publish-case-study/). To read more articles and view studies about how cannabis is an effective treatment and cure for cancer, click here (http://www.collective-evolution.com/?s=Cannabis+Cancer).

Cannabinoids refer to any of group of related compounds that include cannabinol and the active constituents of cannabis. They activate cannabinoid receptors in the body. The body itself produces compounds called endocannabinoids and they play a role in many processes within the body that help to create a healthy environment. I think it’s also important to note that cannabis has been shown to treat cancer without any…

Earlier this spring, a bit before drawing on the street was seasonable here in Montreal, I spent an afternoon sketching in the greenhouse at the MTL Botanical Garden.

Looking back in time, my location drawing has been a fairly steady transition from black and white line drawing, through line and wash, and towards painting on location.  Mostly I see this as a natural progression. An ‘improvement’ from drawing towards painting. I think most people would feel that paintings are somehow more challenging. A ‘higher art’ than drawing?

There’s some biological reason behind it I’m sure. A painting, being tonal, can tap into the eye-to-brain function and convince us we’re looking at reality. But, oddly, that’s why I love line work. Because it’s not such a straightforward illusion of reality. There’s something about an ‘unfinished’ sketch that really appeals to me. It’s partially the speed of execution (they are more fun for…

Exactly a month after dad died, I found myself in North Carolina again. I missed my family, my dad’s house needed to be cleaned, my dad’s cremains were ready, and I just needed to get away from DC.

My dad’s cremains were split into two nondescript boxes. I kept both boxes on my lap in the car and I could not stop thinking about how a big tall man had been reduced to two boxes of ashes. Ashes to ashes. It struck me as odd, how as a child I used to sit on my father’s lap and now the roles were reversed with him sitting on my lap.

We did a lot at my father’s house. Food donated to a food bank. Junk discarded including a huge tub of individually wrapped plastic cutlery and a million copies of a single document denouncing Mormonism in favor of Christianity. Three bedrooms…

Fear of Flying
For Kate
Rachael Z. Ikins (c) 2014

12 years ago almost-birthday.
Muggy July, heat embargo.
10 p.m. My thighs stuck to vinyl.
Diesel fragrant air, tired tourists,
rumpled in, jackets lumped on arms, 
meandering toward Baggage Claim.
I watched them dwindle.

All my losses, deaths, griefs-accumulated
weighted my ribs, my own stained satchel.
Corridors echoed, tourists vanished,
hydraulic doors hissed at the night
like a frightened cat.
My thighs stuck to vinyl. 

Does the airport stay open 24/7?
At “too late” a blue-suited man entered 
a secret door from the tarmac.
He carried my sharded heart,
white basket hung from one finger.
My thighs stung unstuck,
he smiled,

“Is this yours?”

I took my beating heart,
my own two hands, 
pressed my face, painful metal.
Blue crocheted baby-blanket,
two enormous ear-tips poking through. 
This exact moment

I knew your wings; 
that you had grabbed me 
by my…

I’ve had a poem in my head around this subject for a good week-ish now. It all happened after I stopped into Local First Grocer, a local food co-op that only sources local food. I asked if they take EBT, which I have been on up until the end of this month. They said, “not yet.” I knew the cashier and I mentioned something about going off of food stamps soon, and that it was kind of embarrassing.

“No, it isn’t.”

Say what?

You see I’ve bought into the American philosophy, namely this: If I am on food stamps, I am abusing the system, I should have done better, and I should work harder to get myself out of the mess I put myself in.

Nevermind that I am a poor college student who just graduated with $40,000 in student loans. Nope. Nevermind that.

I was still just a broke…

A friend recently asked me to write a letter to people who are always worried how they’re coming across to others. She doesn’t want to hurt someone else’s feelings by sharing hers, but she’s also sick of editing herself. In her awesome words, “I mean, when will I stop fretting over this sh*t?” (Oh dear, someone might be offended by my language. Oh well. F*ck it.) Sound familiar? Do you constantly censor yourself because you’re worried about other people’s reactions?

In our hunter-gatherer primitive nature, women especially have an inherent urge to nurture and protect. So it is completely natural to care about the feelings and opinions of others. What tends to happen, though, is that we too often put those feelings and opinions above our own. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about how our words impact other people. Of course that matters. But the more we hold back our authenticity, the less connection we feel…

Source: Themetapicture

For today’s Fun Friday, I submit for your approval, the following cartoon.  

Have a wonderful weekend!

It was a black film canister, rattling around the bottom of an old Naturalizer shoebox labeled “photos.” I opened it, wondering if it was a roll of unused film. Instead, I found a twist of white tissue paper wrapped around tightly rolled black-and-white negatives. I held them up to the light. At first I saw…legs.

Then, people with bicycles.

Wait, that looks like the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Is that Tiananmen Square? With banners?

Next, a white form rising above a crowd, holding…a torch?

Oh man, is this what I think it is?

On Sunday night, I was searching through my parents’ photos for a piece I was writing on Tiananmen Square and my father, when I stumbled across two rolls of negatives that appeared to be from the 1989 student democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. I was stunned. I had no idea where they were from, why my parents had…

Sometimes poetry is silent…
Sometimes a masterpiece has no canvas…
Sometimes music has no sound…
Sometimes…
It’s just good to be alive.