Before I started my undergrad, I never understood art. I never understood the appeal, the intricacies, why certain strokes of paint across the canvas were better than others, or why any of those things were important.
My discovery of Caravaggio changed all of this. So much so that I changed my singular major to a dual one with intent of heading to graduate school to get my MA in art history.
Which would have happened if I did not have an irrational fear of learning a new language, as you do.
When I went to Rome in 2005, I made it my mission to see all the Caravaggios available in the city, since the damned place is lousy with them. This sparked a bigger idea of tracking down and seeing, in person, all the Caravaggios available in the world. This is how The Caravaggio Project was born, and to date, I’ve seen Caravaggios in five or six countries and two continents, with many future trips planned around this theme.
I decided to keep track of the project online so that I can better figure out what I have and have not seen, plus I need to feel that certain sense of accomplishment. The chronology of Caravaggio’s work is from Wikipedia, but I plan to keep verify the entries once I get the data all established. It also helps that there has been a resurgence of interest in his work, such as the recent travelling exhibition, Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome and books such as The Lost Painting.
The listing for The Caravaggio Project isn’t complete yet, but should be soon.
If you’re wondering why Caravaggio, actually it’s pretty easy: He was a conflicted man that worshipped his own pleasures under the umbrella of the Catholic church. He was a hedonist, lecherous, bisexual, and narcissistic (many of his paintings feature his own likeness in steed of a model). He was the Byronic hero several centuries before Byron. His life was that of passion and torment, and the fact that he had an artistic ability that was almost supernatural is actually secondary to the man himself. He lead a tragic life and died quite young. If one could be a Caravaggio groupie, that would be me.
Judith Beheading Holefrenes is probably my most favorite of his paintings, though I’m fond of his Bacchus series as well. I picked up a nice print at the Borghese Gallery of Judith Beheading Holefrenes that used to hang in my bedroom before it was nearly destroyed due to mold and damage from improper storage while I was in-between places.
I thought it sent a nice message to current and future suitors.
Author: pookiebear
Watch out for the falling divs
[Update: 19:21] Seems like I caught and found most of the errant pixels driving me batty, but everything is not perfect. If you or someone you know is a web developer, comfortable with WordPress & CSS, contact me ASAP. I’ve hacked the fuck out the CSS for this theme but my fixing the themes mistakes keeps breaking it! I know it’ll take 2-3 hours to fix the CSS (at max). The framework could also be tweaked as well to clean it up.
Currently tweaking the blog’s theme, which is causing it to morph in and out of various themes for the last hour or so, and will continue on and off for the rest of the day. If you find something isn’t where it was a moment ago, that is why!
-lisa
It’s all about the hair.
I never thought I’d write a post about my beauty process1, however, a large number of my Twitter girlfriends and I haven taken to having unplanned and very random discussions lately on everything from being anxious to our periods to whatever else our vaginas demand we talk about on the twitters. As the conversations are often spontaneous2, and it typically starts out with one writing a blog post, another commenting on said blog, then more entering the fray with their thoughts and the threads go on for ages. Thus, when Carolyn recently wrote about that she doesn’t use shampoo, I commented that at some point I should write about the fact that I wash my hair once a week. Several of them said I needed to do such a post because it would be very important, natch, to note that not all of us are created equal, hair wise.3 Since I’m a writer with consistant writer’s block, if writing about my girly acts gets me back to writing on a more regular basis, who am I to argue?
When I say “I wash my hair once a week,” I mean specifically that: I wet and lather my hair once a week. I do not wet or wash it during the course of the week, with the odd exceptions here or there, but usually I have to set aside time for THE WASHING not so much that I have so much hair but that it can be a fairly long process. When I first met my friend Jessica, this past January we were attending the same workshops together in California, and one night we were planning on doing something or another and I mentioned that I had to get back to our hotel early to wash my hair. She looked at me like I was crazy, as it does sound so damned ’50s. Though, to be fair, I have been toying with the idea of setting my hair in juice cans for curls that won’t quit but that is neither here nor there.
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angry girl is angry
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill
My primary work husband let some words slip today, in regards to me, that is currently traveling around our place of work. I wasn’t terribly surprised to hear what was said, though to his credit he gave generalities over specifics, knowing that if I knew more about the situation(s), it would or could make it uncomfortable for me in future interactions. He did, however, throw me a bone in that a female in a similar level and power as myself was, instead of clutching me to her bosom, also responsible for some of what was said. I wasn’t terribly surprised to hear that she was making noises about me, but, I was genuinely distressed to hear that she felt it necessary to gingerly throw me under the bus rather than embrace our uniqueness.
This is also not the first time, nor will it be the last, where my character has or will be called into question. Not in this current postion, nor in the past positions I’ve held. In the past, I’ve typically placed the blame on myself: I was too opinionated, too honest, too many whateverits and thus, it almost always got me in trouble. My work ethic and job performances were never criticized, no, but my personality often was. I’ve always taken responsibility and the blame for these things when it has happened, even if I was in right, because work politics is work politics, no matter how inane and how misguided they may be. As Omar from The Wire keeps saying, “You’ve got to play the game before the game plays you.”
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the perfect storm
Several days later, I had a massive anxiety attack while at work, the first one in months.
And I believe the hemorrhage and the anxiety attack are related.
It’s time to strip naked everything.
Day 13: Tales of the Blue Monarch Unlocked
Not much terribly to report for Sunday. TheHusband and I went to Meijer Gardensto take advantage of the beautiful 60F+ weather we were having and he had never been, so we thought why the fuck not? The downfall was that the gardens were not in bloom and the interior + sculpture park were jammed with kids with overly engaged parents. By overly engaged, I mean parents who completely disregarded the signs to not touch the sculptures and letting their children use them as play things. We saw more people posing pictures with their kids to illustrate WHAT A FUN TIME THEY WHERE HAVING over, you know, actually having a fun time.
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Day 12: Unlocked
- Broke down all the recycling and stuffed our 96 gallon recycling bin. Recycling pick ups in GRap are every OTHER week. Thanks to Amazon.com Prime, we keep UPS delivery guy busy and our recycling bin filled to near overflowing.
- In an attempt to unfuck the porcelain cooktop to our gas stove, we found Barkeeper’s Friend, which unfucked a lot of the mess TheHusband tends to leaves behind when he cooks and which I can never get clean. It also apparently works well with stainless steel sinks, so you know what is going to get unfucked next. Huzzah!
- Unloaded the diswasher, reloaded it. Washed the hand-wash only pots and wiped the sink down.Then put away ALL THE THINGS. Countertop AND sink are now empty!
- Cleaned down the working areas in the kichen, EVEN PICKING UP THE THINGS I USUALLY WIPE AROUND, and put all putable items away.
ProTip: You know the problem with having a house that is 3200 sqft (297.28 m2) and served over three floors? You need 3x as much shit! You don’t “a” broom, you need THREE brooms (one on each floor). Thus, for every X thing we need for one floor, rule goes you need the same item on other floors. Yes, yes, you could argue you could have one thing and carry it between floors, but let me tell you, that shit gets old quick. Especially with cleaning supplies.
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Day 12: A few weeks of fail
Instead, you get one giant post filled with snarls and teeth gnashing.
Day one was as it was to be: Clothes laid out the night before, coffee made for the morning, lunch/breakfasts made and packed. Most of everything laid out in this reminder post over at UFYH is what I do (more or less) on a regular basis prior to my discovering UFYH but this time I did ALL THE THINGS. The morning the first went without a hitch as I woke up on time, did my five minute yoga and seven minute writing bits and the rest of the day, since I was not stressed, flowed as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I even started laying out the post I was going to write for that day. But something – IT IS ALWAYS SOMETHING – ate in my world and well, the post was never written and the days that followed were a complete and utter fail because of a hiccup, I tore the entire project down in my head.
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Unfucking Throbbing Manor
Recently, I saw a bit of Tumblr posts on Twitter scroll on by from Cat Valente, which the titles lead me curious and curiouser down the dark rabbit hole that is Tumblr. I was fine with this since the occasional tapping of the Tumblr vein never really hurt anyone and Cat’s posts all pointed to the nirvana – a blog called Unfuck Your Habitat.
After perusing the site for a bit, it took me a minute to figure out that Unfuck Your Habitat builds/uses the same methods as The Fly Lady, only in a more OMGBBQ and animated gifs heavy way, with a teensy dose of profanity. Which if I’m honest amongst my close friends here on the intarwebs, I’m moar likely to use something where “fuck” is sprinkled liberally about and the cherry on top are vaguely obnoxious animated gifs say over a site that seems to be geared towards, well, women I’d like to strangle on a daily basis.
The premise is simple: You find something you want to unfuck and you unfuck it. It can be as small as simply taking the steps to making your bed everyday and laying out that day’s clothes the night before or even just unfucking an area that is always in a cluster and working on keeping that unfucked on a more regular basis. In an related but not kind of way, I’ve been working on unfucking my emotional/creative life for the last month by meditating every morning for five minutes and then writing for 7 minutes before I begin my day. And by “begin my day,” I mean pour coffee down my throat in order to become human.
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The Sign of the Four
The last couple of weeks have been particularly vivid and that may have to do with the following in no particular order:
Battlestar Galactica
TheHusband and I began watching Battle Star Galactica several weeks ago and we’re almost finished with S3. He has remarked BSG is “…like Downton Abbey, except in space,” which I can totally get behind. When I almost accused a student recently of treason when they asked for books on Cicero AND I had been mildly hallucinating the parking lot elevators are Cyclons, I told TheHusband we needed to take a break from the action, though for the last few BSG-free nights he’s been a titch antsy in not getting his fix.
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