3rd most Popular Blog of 2008! The Mullet!!!

Remember that Mullet post? I've learned that someone somewhere in the world types in "How to Make a Mullet" nearly every day and arrives at my blog. Who knew there was such a need in the world for mullet instruction?

Welcome to Jean's School of Mullet Creations:

Michael is headed to NASCAR this weekend and we wanted to make sure his passport to Indiana was in order. We were ready to begin after intense research over at the excellent website: http://mulletsgalore.com/

mullet: noun 1. a chiefly marine fish that is widely caught for food. 2. a hairstyle in which the hair is cut short at the front and sides and left long in back.

Jean: "So, Mikey, you want it short in the front and long in the back, right?" Michael: "Yeah, I wanna Mullet!"

I have never cut anyone's hair before so a mullet request made me extra nervous. I've been told I have "hands of gold" with other craft projects, so why wouldn't it extend to the realm of mullet art? Tools required: Scissors and maybe a comb. The toilet as barber's chair will suffice. My technique was based largely on how I've observed hairdressers cut hair. I comb out a length of hair and grasp it between my index and middle finger. I snip across the top with the other hand. This creates an excellent textured effect if you grab small pieces at a time and work slowly around the top and sides of the head. Remember: you can't rush perfection. We discussed how the mullet lifestyle is largely low maintenance so take special care in cutting off side hair that you would otherwise assume would be tucked behind the ear. Don't assume gel or manual primping will keep stray strands at bay either. This is a mullet, ladies and gentleman. Notice the hair cutting form I use: raised elbows, hands kept within inches of head at all

times, basically intense mullet concentration.

Let's get a good 360 degree look:

To add to the mullet-do, try on a handlebar mustache, like a little caterpillar reclining on his upper lip:

Do not confuse the handlebar with the closely related but culturally incompatible Fu Man Chu:

We noticed how Michael became more belligerent and turned from fine wine to corn whiskey as his hair got shorter and shorter up top.

The utterly convincing transformation has frightened me a little but Michael is surely ready for NASCAR now.

What gets you out of Bed in the Morning

The world premiere of my newest sound piece!
http://web.mac.com/mcgeetheresa/iWeb/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html
Thanks to Garageband and some file space over at my sister's iWeb page, I am now launching a new sound piece that investigates what gets people out of bed in the morning.
Perhaps you were interviewed for this. Can you find your voice in it?

Revisiting those Famous Graves

It just so happens that I had to drive past one of the graves featured on my 2009 Famous Chicago Graves Calendar.

I parked my car in nearly the exact same spot as I did last summer at the Robinson Family Burial Grounds in the Robinson Woods Forest Preserve. This time, a family of deer were dining on bread pieces left around the Indian Burial Monument. As you may recall from the calendar, ghost hunters who have visited this "highly active" space claim the presence of paranormal activity such as the scent of lilacs in the middle of winter. I took a deep breath hoping to smell some ghosts who like to manifest in the form of flower smells. No luck today. I was happy to glimpse some real deer up close though.

I also tried to recreate the same photo (pictured above) that I collaged into the December issue of the calendar. Those of you who have the calendar may remember my picture of my self-timed camera balancing on the hood of my polka-dot car while I ran into the picture with the gravesite in the background. Here it is again, only winter! Notice what a Chicago winter can do to your polka-dot painted car!
The deer- I'm assuming the papa deer, the others retreated into the brush- stared intensely at me while I was setting my camera on my car and running into the snow. I imagined this deer thinking to himself, "You humans are so bizarre. Can you finish taking your pictures so we can get back to munching our bread? Thanks."

Ranked #4 in Most Popular Blog posts of 2008

Art+Menstruation=Mandalas

During a few days of every month, there is this “zing” in my veins that says to make something, make it now, make it messy, just do it and ignore everything else. So I do. The result is always something I would never make any other time of the month.

I did a brief Google search on art and menstruation and came across several taboos. There were drawings made with menstrual blood, artists displaying stained underwear, and blood spots chronicling their cycle day by day. The creative work I’m picturing here doesn’t connect to menstruation quite so literally–I used only paint pigment–but it still comes from a wilder creative source.

I think a woman’s brain can do amazing things (well, all month long) but can achieve an even more unique consciousness during menstruation.

I live in a culture that numbs out our cycles or tries to eliminate them entirely. Let me be clear that this “dark” time of the month is full of inconvenience and discomfort, but I still cherish them wholeheartedly, er, and whole-uterinely. Before and during my period, my dreams are more vivid. Strange shapes swoop in and leave just as quickly. The veil between consciousness and dreaming is thinner at this time. I believe in being spacey and menstruation ensures that I set aside time to dream.

Here’s to finding a centering and wholeness in our different cycles (of all sorts) and to talking openly and positively about menstruation.

Doodling Tuesday #8

So here comes Doodling Tuesday on a Wednesday again!

#5 Most Popular 2008 Post: Live Models for Cemetery Needed

Oh, those were the days back in 2008...when I was scrambling for ideas for my "Famous Chicago Graves" Calendar.
Here is the #5 most popular post from my blog in 2008. Five bonus points if you can tell me which ideas below made the final cut in the calendar!

"As many people have already heard, I am putting together a 2009 Calendar in a similar spirit as the 2008 Calendar. The polka-dot car will be featured in every month as we did last year but it will be placed strategically with various Chicago Gravestones. Yes, graves. This is where I need your help. I am now recruiting models for each month of the year. In a very respectful, celebratory manner, we will be recreating the character buried approximately six feet under our feet. I will drive you in your costume with props to our chosen location for the picture and in return you get a 2009 Calendar. Sweet deal, right?

(Pictured above is the stylish Natasha at Mies Van Der Rohe’s sleek grave site in Graceland Cemetery last November.)

Here are some pre-selected burials to ponder:

1. CHESTER GOULD-creator of comic strip Dick Tracey, buried in Oakland Cemetery in Woodstock, IL. (a bit of a hike but if you can rock the Dick Tracey outfit, you’re in.)

2. MRS. O’LEARY-yes, the one whose cow started the great Chicago fire. You’ve pretty much got the part if you have a cow costume and a lantern. She’s in Mt. Olivet on the Southside.

3. CHARLES COMISKEY- White Sox guy in Calvary Cemetery in Evanston. This cemetery is very close to a good place to eat chocolate. I’m just saying.

4. HAREY CAREY-buried in All Saints in Des Plaines. Big glasses and a microphone anyone?

5. CLARENCE and GRACE HEMINGWAY- yup, Ernest’s parents are in Forest Park at the Forest Home/German Waldheim Cemetery. Forest Park is a neighboring suburb of Oak Park. And Oak Park is where Mr. Hemingway was known to have said, “is a place of broad lawns and narrow minds.”–or something like that.

6. EMMA GOLDMAN-anarchist who could only get back into the country dead. The fabulous Natasha may have already claimed this rebel rouser as her chosen character. She’s got Russian connections ‘n stuff. This rebel rouser’s final resting place is also in Forest Park near the aforementioned broad lawns. Poor Emma.

7. 4 HORSE DRIVER/BALDY- and while we’re in Forest Park, we could go to Woodlawn Cemetery and recreate the circus from 1918. This famous story can be found here about the Circus train crash that killed scores of Circus performers. There is a mourning elephant statue commemorating the victims. Sad Clown anyone?

8. FRANK & PETER GUSENBURG-gangsters killed at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. I think it’s in ‘gangster row’ in Irving Park Cemetery. I know a few good gangster get-ups from last year, hmmm?

9. DINAH WASHINGTON-jazz legend in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip.

10. INEZ CLARKE-in Graceland (the King of Kings when it comes to Cemeteries). This legendary and perhaps haunted grave site has a glass-encased statue of this 6 year old girl. It could be our spookiest one yet.

11. CIVIL WAR MONUMENT (in St. Boniface perhaps?)-I have some possible recruits willing to display their stage combat skills with swords and stuff. That one is in the works.

12. ???

There are 12 months to fill but this should get us started. Respond quickly to secure a spot in the Calendar!!! Here are some great websites to start your own searches: Graveyards of Illinois: www.graveyards.com

findagrave.com

End Quote"

#6 in 2008's Top Ten Blog PostsClearing screen (and green) space

I continue to post my old blog posts that got the most hits in 2008. (Back in my wordpress days.) A quick update to this post about recycling...I did recycle this old laptop at the Hazardous Item Drop-Off site! The place is great and you should go see it! It's cool and industrial and the staff all wear outfits that think you are in a nuclear war.

So here's my 6th most popular post from 2008:

In the purging frenzy that originated from the clotheswap, I felt the need to rid myself of other things…such as the old college laptop-a cheeseburger of a laptop, says my friend-sitting in my closet. It was a hand-me-down from my sister in 2001.

Good ole, Windows 95!

It even has a floppy disc drive!

After some shallow internet research, I have learned there is a drop off site in Chicago specifically for recycling your old computers and other hazardous items. I did, indeed, just say recycling and Chicago in the same sentence. I haven’t recycled it yet so maybe there is a nerd who wants to adopt this computer from me? They have strange hours:

The facility is located at 1150 N. North Branch Street, which is two blocks east of the Kennedy Expressway at Division Street. The facility is open for drop-offs on the following days:

• Tuesday (7:00am - 12:00pm)
• Thursday (2:00pm- 7:00pm)
• The first Saturday of every month (8:00am - 3:00pm)

I am going to try and work around these strange hours and give a complete update on the recycling experience. Presently, a friend is helping transfer old files into my new computer via the internet connection that is still possible on this machine.

Before Mozilla married Firefox:

¡Viva my Sophomore Art History essays!

Also, at a later date, I hope to interview my father about his KAYPRO 10 (a green screen!) that is still in use for his business. (Whadya say, Pop?) Anyone up for a little time travel to 1983? If it ain’t broke…

Doodling Tuesdays #7

This stretches the definition of doodle but I thought it would be worthwhile to show this piece here as a very experimental, ever-evolving work...which I consider a characteristic of doodling. Any feedback on this image is welcome!

#7 of Top Ten Blog Posts of 2008

I continue to post former blog posts from 2008 that ranked in the top 10 most popular.
Here's #7: Polka-dot Road Trip Through the Mountains

Natasha and Jean on fiddle,

Stacie on guitar,

Camping gear, too much non-perishable food for our own good, and a polka dot car:

The makings for a road trip! We went through the Crooked Road for 6 days and five nights in a tent fending off raccoons with pepper spray and an axe. (Well, not really, but we had the means.) This road, “Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail”, located in the Southwestern corner of Virginia, brags in its brochure and website, thecrookedroad.org, various towns offering old-time and bluegrass music jams. The brochure never shed light on WHEN these jams happened but we managed to play our instruments in the campgrounds nightly…. sometimes welcomed by fellow campers when they turned their own music off to listen…but one time we were told to “turn it in.” Tsk, tsk. Those crazy Chicago girls and their wild country songs. There are several music festivals in this region that, sadly, never coincided with our haphazard itinerary.

Our first major “Crooked Road” attraction was the Ralph Stanley Museum in Clintwood, VA. At this museum, we got some “Virgina directions” to the Stanley Family Cemetery way out in the mountains in McClure, VA.

“You can go left, you can go right, but you’re gonna wanna go straight up the hill.” And up the hills we went, while enjoying such country music lyrics as “I’d like to check you for tics” and “There’s nothing as pure as the kindness of an atheist.” (Thank you to the band, Freakwater.) White-knuckled, sweaty, and nauseated from the dips and turns of mountain roads for over an hour, my spirits were at an all-time low. But the polka-dot sputtered its way to probably it’s all-time high (in elevation.) This part of the country does not have strict laws on burials on their own property–the run-off issue has been skirted thus far– so we stumbled upon quite a few small family cemeteries, psyching ourselves out for the real deal Stanley grave. “Oh, Death,” indeed.

(The wrong cemetery but worth a look-see.)

Sure enough, we took a wrong turn, not following our Virginia directions, and stumbled upon our long sought after grave–clearly, no longer in a state of “constant sorrow.”

We drove up one final hill and promptly retrieved the instruments out of the back seat. None of us knew how to play any Stanley Brothers stuff so we just sat at the Stanley Family benches and played, well, pretty much whatever. It was twangy and old-timey enough for the Stanleys, I’m sure.

We continued winding down the road (part of it the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway)…and took a few steps on the Appalachian Trail…

..we saw the Carter Family Fold briefly, the artsy hippie dippie town of Floyd with it’s famous weekly Country store jamborees (which we, of course, missed), and finally Ferrum, VA, home of Ferrum College and the Blue Ridge Institute, housing various exhibits on local folk traditions. Being the end of the Crooked Road, we thought we should play one more time by the Crooked Road sign atop the polka dot car:

Lucky for us, some Institute staff heard our playing and came out to the parking lot to take their own pictures of the Chicago girls with their polka dot car in the mountains. Here’s hoping we make next year’s brochure–or at least the local paper this week. So…after a free Ferrum College cafeteria lunch from the Institute’s director, and stimulating folk music conversation, we were invited to our first live jam of the week: children’s summer camp at the farm museum across the street. Not kidding.

Stacie and I jumped in on the barn dance while Natasha flaunted her fiddling “Soldier’s Joy” best (seated in the very center) with the band. Hundreds of miles later, we were back in Chicago like nothing ever happened.

Doodling Tuesday #6

Once again, Doodling Tuesdays comes to you on a Wednesday. My excuse this week is that I was out of town and away from the computer. Perhaps this doodle brings awareness to the intensity with which we use our gadgets.