One turkey in the oven, another headed for the deep fryer, about to start the potatoes
Category Archives: Pictures
Hairless
I have mixed feelings about hairless cats. The result of careful breeding of cats that were hairless as result of a spontaneous mutation, the breed itself strikes me as a demonstration of man’s willingness to sustain something that should not be. Fans of the breed tout its “natural mutation” origin as if that means hairlessness is not a defect, but there’s a reason we don’t see populations of these cats in the wild: cats without hair lack temperature control and basic skin protection.
There have been attempts to give these cats a backstory as a natural breed, but they were essentially unknown except as occasional “natural mutations.” Their story feels to me like the story of companion animals in general – they are prized for their dependence on humans. The Sphynx, as the breed is called, has a reputation for being exceptionally affectionate, a “Love Mooch,” according to the profile at Cat Fanciers Association. Their skin is not completely smooth, having a very light hair. A hairless cat’s skin is generally described as similar to suede or chamois, and warm to the touch (although they can chill quickly). They look and feel so vulnerable, they are bound to trigger more than the usual parental protection feeling in people who encounter them.
The photosharing site, Flickr, can almost certainly take at least some credit for increasing the popularity of the breed. Cats are phenomenonal subjects, and hairless cats are some of the most visually interesting cats out there, sharing the physicial proportions of breeds like Siamese. They are often described by their owners as a “great conversation piece.”
I can’t fault anyone who goes to the trouble of getting a pet from a breeder for wanting to share pictures, at least, of their pet with the world, but it can be hard to find a picture of a hairless cat that doesn’t look frankly malevolent. I made an effort this week to look for a different angle. I looked for the curious, the snoozy, the engaged, the loving. They will always look odd to me, but after finding these pictures, and others like them, they do look a little more like the cats I’ve known and loved.
New Hat
Cute Saturday
Bobby Chui is an illustrator with an adorable worldview:
As a person who has grown up being presented with skeptical, intellectual owls, it’s that wide-eyed raptor’s deep lean (with careful tail counterbalance) that charms me most in this illustration. But Chui isn’t limited by sentimentality.
I actually dislike this Yeti-Bunny picture, which is why I included it. Chui’s work contains extensive caricaturing of both human and animal figures – look through the people and cat/dog images in his portfolio at Imaginism. But what drew me to him is his frequent use of a visual undercut of some kind.
For some reason, the big bad bunny eater is funny, where the yeti dragging the bunny is not. I have some idea why I react this way, but I’d be happy to hear how others react, too. Either way, his distinct style, delightful characters, and multidimensionality make him a wonderful illustrator.
Mark Bryan
“Ever since I can remember, I’ve been troubled by the state of things.” That’s how Mark Bryan begins his artist statement. I read it after looking through a couple dozen images of his work, and it tied some things together for me.
Bryan’s work spans politics, popular culture, social commentary, and quiet contemplation. He says he usually starts with a beautiful landscape but can’t leave it at that. His subjects are by turns funny and mischievous and troubling and destructive. He’s thoughtful and respectful, even loving, in his work, but not sentimental. He manages to understate even in bizarre pieces.
The originals of much of the work at his portfolio site have been sold, I am delighted to see. He also makes prints available. When I started this entry, I wanted to compare him to another painter I also love, but Bryan deserves his own entry. “Apart from all the trouble we cause ourselves, I believe we are immersed in a powerful and beautiful mystery,” he says. All the most observant realists are passionate romantics, too.
Resurrections
Google has just launched a service hosting images from LIFE magazine, back to about … forever!
“Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.”
You can also browse by people, events, culture, and more, or use search terms.
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Oddly concurrently, Listverse recently published a haunting list of the last known photographs of – mostly – well-known people.
Other entries include Einstein, Monroe, Princess Di, and of course Hitler. (And Anne Frank.) Each item includes the circumstances of the photos and their discovery.
Monkey Mondays!
The incomparable Goopy is beginning a new Flickr feature: Monkey Monday! Lucky for us, he’s starting early!
See more wonderful illustrations of animals and their kin, the simple pleasures of life, strange new characters, and food for thought – and more at the Goopymart Flickr stream.
Flickr Problems
Flickr is having load problems – which means that just about all the images on my blog are inaccessible. They hope to have things smoothed out soon. I hope they do, too!
Update: Yay! They did!
PEACHES!
The other day I overheard someone quoting “really like your peaches, wanna shake your tree,” and it’s been going through my head ever since. Really just because it’s funny. Then I saw this article in the New York Times about William Eggleston’s work, illustrated with the photo above, which now looks even more wonderful to me than usual.
Eggleston took pictures of “nothing” and “nobodies” in color when art photography was very serious and very monochrome. He also did this in the Mississippi delta. Now that the country is engaging in an extra helping of hand-wringing over regional divisions and, here in California, a new crisis of civil-rights, his intimate, loving photography of a deep South in transition is helpful and humanizing.
Bay Rainbow
I’ve been taking a lot of bike rides at lunchtime this year. I nip out to Fort Point and back – about 10 miles round trip. Sometimes I bring a camera, because there are lots of birds on that route, but sometimes all I have is my phone – which almost did the job on this partly cloudy, drizzly day, when a rainbow stretched from Alcatraz to Fort Mason as I rode back to the office.