Art in the library gallery

Today the cleaners are here, so I'm out and about. The current exhibit at the library is amazing. Hyperrealistic portraits in acrylic on MDF and canvas. So large I'm doing wide shots.

The show's newly up, no information yet about the artist, nor book to sign. I have to find out more. Ed note: I found an old interview with him on YouTube worth visiting. Turns out he uses an airbrush, hence the smooth transitions. 

After I'd been encouraging everyone else to revisit Jane Austen, I checked my Kindle and found that my old complete works had gone away with my old Kindle. 

So I invested in this new version, despite the hideous graphic, because it includes some early work I'd never read. 

It's a crime that such treasure goes for a bargain price when modern much less worthy work costs so much more. Yes, I know living authors need the $$, or rather their publishers do, but don't get me started on the iniquities of the publishing industry.

While I was at the library I did some jigsaw puzzling, because they'd set out a what is the name again, wildebeest? No, springbok, close enough, one of my favorite puzzling sources. The pieces are sturdy enough to pick up without scrabbling (!) away, and they have varied shapes. These are important considerations. Oh, and the pictures are okay, too. 

While I was out, before the library, I thought I'd get gas, below quarter full, in my world that's disaster territory, so I went to the nearest gas station, not my usual, nice guys, why not. And their card reader wasn't working. I had no cash, so I ended up going to the further away one anyway, where the guys are terse, but all the things work.

Then all the way back to the local library, and you know the rest. All this driving and blogging and puzzling was quite a bit of activity, and I wasn't inclined to set off again doubling back over all of it, to go to the Friday further away knitting group. Resting and reading Jane Austen in my clean house is now the plan.

Also the very last of the chicken in a  lunch sandwich, dessert beautiful strawberries and yogurt. 

Meanwhile I read Lady Susan, an early Austen, new to me, and I'm on to Sense and Sensibility, the Emma Thompson movie, and the Kindle edition. 

Happy day, everything in moderation. Including moderation.

Misfits, Flanders and Swann, Tom Lake and Talarico, the accordion joke revisited

Some people have asked recently about Misfits, and though I'm not doing pr for them, here's a bit of info. Next questioner will  be referred back here!

Meanwhile some good things are happening in Texas, against the odds. Talarico is a national treasure, great speaker, incisive questioner, gets things done. 

And I was wandering about amusing myself, came across this old gem on YouTube. Mozart's horn concerto by Flanders and Swann.

I saw their earliest show, in the fifties at the Edinburgh Festival, then another later in London. Go find them, several audios with a bit of video footage -- they predated what we do now. Still funny. Evergreen.

And while I'm involved in James Baldwin The Fire Next Time as well as Henrietta Lacks, I needed a bit of light relief with this Patchett.

And a new puzzle. I like the Springbok 500 pieces. The subjects are photographic, the pieces big enough to pick up without scrabbling, and some have interesting shapes. All good.

Happy day everyone, better than Gary's day, where he spilled an entire container of pungent oil-based stain on his concrete patio, and ran over asking for suggestions on how to lift the stain! He'd already got a lot of the liquid up, and we conferred on next steps.

I would like to say before I forget, that I really appreciate blogistas who read with care what I write with care, also the comments that appear before theirs.  

That's so great in an age where people tend to rush,  hitting the high spots, and miss a lot. You're very much valued, an endangered species. I'm lucky you read here.

And here's the accordion joke revisited