Gorgonbread

"I'm always down for a Spice Girls reunion.

I love the Scary hair and platforms."

-- Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown

Medusa gingerbread cookie 12-25-13 

"There's nothing sadder in this world

than to awake Christmas morning

and not be a child."

-- Erma Bombeck

My son Sam and I baked cutout gingerbread cookies together, for two very specific reasons:

1. Sam wanted to eat the dough. He's been overdosing on Starbucks gingerbread lattes and wanted a hit of the real thing.

2. I wanted to make a Medusa gingerbread "man."

Our cookbook that we got the recipe from didn't call them gingerbread men, though. It called them gingerbread "people."  So our cookies weren't just delicious, they were also PC. (Which, as you probably already know, stands for "pretty cute.")

Sam likes to bake. He makes really delicious biscuits and beautiful pumpkin pies. He started "baking" when he was steady enough to stand on a chair beside me at the kitchen counter. He was about 1 1/2. I'd fold down one of my aprons and sort of swaddle him in it, then give him a bowl, some spoons and measuring cups, jars of spices, and let him go at it. He could put whatever he wanted into his bowl, and mix and stir to his heart's delight while I made muffins, or pizza crust, or cookies. I'd let him dump pre-measured cups of sugar and flour into whatever I was making. Sometimes it hit the bowl. Sometimes it hit the counter. Sometimes it hit the floor. There was usually a big mess to clean up, but it didn't matter. Being side-by-side together in the kitchen -- that's what mattered.

It still is.

Sam is all grown up. But something about baking cookies together brought back his little kid days, and that warmed me more than the heat coming from the oven or the spices in the gingerbread. While he licked batter from a spoon and piped faces and buttons on the "men," I made my Medusa cookie and cleaned up the bowls, the counter and the floor.

Some things never change.

Of course, I played with my food before I ate it:

Man. Person. Whatever.

I think I'll just call her a "Spice Girl."

Merry Christmas!

All wound up and hopping happy

"To get the full value of joy 

you must have someone to divide it with."

-- Mark Twain

Wind-up hopping happy faces 12-23-13

"You've got to S-M-I-L-E to be H-A-Double-P-Y!"

-- Shirley Temple Black

"Find ecstasy in life;

the mere sense of living is joy enough."

-- Emily Dickinson

"Jump!"

-- Van Halen

Tangled up in b'loons

"We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them;

that all of life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness.

But why should this make us unhappy?

Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice.

I don't believe in this world of sorrow."

-- E.M. Forster, A Room With a View

Smiley face balloon Medusa with smiley face balloon snakes hair 12-21-13

"Straightaway I was 'ware

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove ...

'Guess now who holds thee!' -- 'Death,' I said, but there,

The silver answer rang ... 'Not Death, but Love.'"

-- Elizabeth Barret Browing,  

Sonnets from the Portuguese 1: "I Thought how Theocritus" 

"Amarantha sweet and fair,

Ah, braid no more that shining hair!

As my curious hand or eye,

Hovering round thee let it fly."

-- Richard Lovelace, 

"Song to Amarantha, that she would Dishevel her Hair"

Happiest Medusa ever.

Hey big vendor

"A curt voice echoed in Nathaniel's head,

'Prep for impact. This is going to hurt.'"

-- Jonathan Marker, Spyder Silk

Toy duck calls in a vending machine 12-9-13

"Shoot me again! I enjoy it! I love the smell of burnt feathers,

and gunpowder, and cordite!

I'm an elk! Shoot me, go on! It's elk season!

I'm a fiddler crab! Why don't you shoot me? 

It's fiddler crab season!"

-- Daffy Duck, "Duck, Rabbit, Duck!"

Toy duck calls in a vending machine(2) 12-9-13

 "If you must mount the gallows,

give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman,

and make the drop with a smile on your lips."

-- Robert Jordan

In a little twist of irony, I was hunting these duck faces while my husband and son were hunting real ducks.

I got two, they got four.

They like to hunt, and I'm OK with it. It's their thing, which is cool. And I don't usually mind if they bring home pheasant or goose or turkey or rabbit, but the ducks made me a little sad. Usually they field dress whatever they shoot, but it had grown too dark to see, so they brought the ducks home to butcher in the garage.

It was a little surreal seeing up close the four mallards they'd shot, three males and a female. They were still beautiful and glossy and colorful and perfect, except for the blood running out of the places where the steel shot had peppered them. 

I had mixed emotions.

I was happy for the guys because it was their first successful duck hunt and they were totally stoked.

I took the requisite photos of them, father and son smiling, all manly and proud in their camouflage, holding up their quarry, which hung limp and lifeless from floppy necks, and thinking "This is the kid I read Make Way for Ducklings to at least a million times when he was little?"

Who woulda thunk?

I gave them each one of the little plastic duck calls that I'd photographed in the drug store vending machine, as a prize, to show these hunter/gatherers that the female of the tribe acknowledged their victory.

The duck meat is now in my basement freezer. I will eventually cook it for the guys, just as I cook all the other wild game they bag and bring home. They'll eat it, because one of our rules is you can't shoot it unless you plan to eat it, or can find someone else who will (they stockpile skinned squirrels that look like little frozen fetuses, for a grateful lady named Edna, who grew up in the deep south and says things like "sho nuff.") 

I'll probably stick with vegetables.

Like Walter Cronkite said, "The perils of duck hunting are great -- especially for the duck."

EncourageMEnt

"Be good to yourself when, nobody else will

Oh be good to yourself."

-- Journey, "Be Good to Yourself"

Self portrait 12-6-13

"Awareness is learning to keep yourself company.

And then learn to be more compassionate company,

as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage."

-- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"I see you the way you may never see you

caught inside the lies told to you

You're beautiful you know

It would mean so much to me

if what I felt was something you could see."

-- Meryn Cadell, "Beautiful"

Life is like a box of faces

"'When I die,' I said to my friend, 'I'm not going to be embalmed.

I'm going to be dipped.'

Milk chocolate or bittersweet was the immediate concern."

-- Adrianne Marcus

Self portrait 12-5-13

"What you see before you, my friend,

is the result of a lifetime of chocolate."

-- Katharine Hepburn

"Your hand and your mouth agreed many years ago that,

as far as chocolate is concerned,

there is no need to involve your brain."

-- Dave Barry

Today is my 21st wedding anniversary.

Happy Anniversary, D Ray!

I decided to buck tradition and skip the typical brass/nickel gift and go with chocolate instead.

Unlike my husband, who is consistent, rock solid and super dependable, I tend to be a little ... unpredictable.

I'm pretty sure he'd agree that being married to me for 21 years really is like a box of chocolates.

Hell, most days even I don't know what I'm gonna get.

Horror vacui

"For your birthday, I got you a box.

Hooray! It's empty, so you can

fill it with whatever you want."

-- Jarod Kintz, 

A Zebra is the Piano of the Animal Kingdom

Self portrait 12-2-13

"They gave Pandora a box.

Prometheus begged her not to open it.

She opened it.

Every evil to which human flesh is heir came out of it.

The last thing to come out of the box was hope. 

It flew away."

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

"The human life cycle ... evolves around the box;

from the open-topped box called a bassinet,

to the pine box we call a coffin ...

It should not surprise us then that the lowly box 

plays such a significant role in the first Christmas story.

For Christmas began in a humble, hay-filled box of splintered wood.

The Magi ... laid treasure-filled boxes at the feet of that holy child.

And in the end ... the Lord of Christmas was laid down in a box of stone.

How fitting that each Christmas season brightly wrapped boxes 

skirt the pine boughs of Christmas trees around the world."

-- Richard Paul Evans, The Christmas Box

Someone gave us a huge basket filled with many boxes of a bunch of different chocolates.

This box with the little peep-through window was full of chocolate-covered pretzels with sprinkles.

The boys ate all the pretzels.

So, the box was empty.

And you know how nature abhors a void.

(That's horror vacui to you Latin-speaking folks and Aristotelians.)

Some say that human nature abhors a void, too.

People will do lots of extreme, and dangerous, and crazy things to fill their void.

I do this. 

Pull!

"To succeed in life, you need three things:

a wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone."

-- Reba McEntire

G.I. Joes with a wishbone 11-29-13

"As my mom used to say, 

'If wishes were horses, we'd be up to our eyeballs in shit.'"

-- Cat Adams, The Eldritch Conspiracy

"If I had one wish, it would be for self-drying pants.

Wait -- no! Unlimited wishes!

How do I return these stupid  pants?!"

-- Stephen Colbert

It's the day after Thanksgiving, so.

You know.

Time to pull the furcula.

Which means ...

Ding! Ding! Ding!

It's Latin terminology time here at A Face A Day.

Furcula is a Latin term meaning "little fork," in reference to the bone in chickens and turkeys that we commonly call the "wishbone."

Which means...

Ding! Ding! Ding!

It's time for a bird anatomy bonus round!

The furcula is formed by the fusion of the two clavicles, and is supposedly there to strengthen the bird's thoracic skeleton to withstand the rigors of flight. (Even though I personally have never seen a turkey or a chicken fly.)

Which means...

Ding! Ding! Ding!

It's the pop culture daily double!

Traditionally the wishbone, once it is removed from the bird, is allowed to dry and is then held by two opposing "wishers" who each make a wish as they pull the bone apart. It is believed that the wish is granted to the puller who snaps off the larger portion of the bone.

You're both supposed to hold and pull the furcula with your pinkie finger, even though in today's face, Joe and Joe are obviously employing a whole hand technique. Hey, if you have Kung Fu grip, why not use Kung Fu grip? I mean, evolutionarily speaking, if chickens and turkey's don't fly, then they don't really need their furculas, which means that over time, furculas will fade away. Like gills and tails. Right?

So, if Joe and Joe don't use their Kung Fu grip, over time, it will fade away until, eventually, they won't be able to grasp. They'll have those dumb, stiff, unposeable hands, like Barbie. Which means they won't be pulling any more furculas.

And that just ain't gonna happen.

Not on my watch.

Around these parts, evolution is a one way street, my friends. No going back.

Gee, thanks

"God gave you a gift of 84,600 seconds today.

Have you used one of them to say thank you?"

-- William Arthur Ward

Milk chocolate turkeys 11-28-13

"The turkey, slain, slowly cooked over our gas or electric fires,

is the central figure at our holy feast.

It is the totem animal that brings our tribe together."

-- Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Or Turkey Day! 

Or Tofurkey Day! 

Or Hanukkah! 

Whatever you call it, happy whatever it is.

*No actual turkeys were harmed in the making of this face.

A quick pick-me-up

"No one is useless in this world 

who lightens the burdens of another."

-- Charles Dickens

Wood mannequins 11-27-13

"There is no exercise better for the heart 

than reaching down and lifting people up."

-- John Holmes

Wood mannequin 11-27-13

Soldier on

"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world
which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime,
and falling in at night.
I miss you like hell."

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay, Letters

"Soldier on," 11-26-13

"What's broken is broken --

and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best

than mend it and see the broken places as long as I live."

-- Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind

"Soldier on (2)," 11-26-13 

"How badly is it broken?"

"It's in a million little pieces."

"I'm afraid I can't help you."

"Why?"

"There's nothing you can do."

"Why?"

"It can't be fixed."

"Why?"

"It's broken beyond repair. It's in a million little pieces."

-- James Frey, A Million Little Pieces

"If all else perished, and he remained,

I should still continue to be;

and if all else remained, and he were annihilated,

the universe would turn to a mighty stranger."

-- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Just a face in the crowd

"There is nothing like looking,
if you want to find something."

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

"Where's Waldo?" 11-25-13

"The creatures I seek do not want to be seen."

-- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

"Leave me alone, and go in search of someone else."

-- Ali ibn Abi Talib

"And you were just a face in the crowd

You were just a face in the crowd

Out in the street, walking around

A face in the crowd."

-- Tom Petty, "A Face in the Crowd"

Ding! Ding! Ding!

It's game time here at A Face A Day!

Today we're playing "Where's Waldo?" 

OK, it's not really Waldo hiding somewhere in this jumble of faces. It's Barbie, disguised as Waldo. (Hey, I work with what I have.) 

You might recognize some other old friends in this group. It's sort of a reunion photo of sorts, with a few new faces mixed in. 

Happy searching!

Take that, motherclucker!

"If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens."

-- Grandma Moses

Chicken face 11-22-13

"Noise proves nothing.

Often a hen who has merely laid an egg

cackles as if she laid an asteroid."

-- Mark Twain

Chickens 11-22-13

"I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. 

There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. 

It's chicken and eggs. And I said, I gotta use that one."

-- Paul Simon

Tired of my own face, I decided to spend my afternoon on a face-hunt looking for new material.
I went to the pet store, and stopped at a farm with chickens, goats, a stand-offish sheep and an extremely attention-starved cat that kept winding itself around my legs and trying to get all up in between me and my camera. Anyway, in spite of interference from the cat, the outing was a success -- it got me out of the house, and I have these lovely ladies to thank for it.

Twofer Tuesday

"Art has a double face, of expression and illusion."

-- Publilius Syrus

Self portrait 11-19-13

"Look in the mirror. 

The face that pins you with its double gaze 

reveals a chastening secret."

-- Diane Ackerman

Pin Art pinscreen Medusa face 11-19-13

I have a new toy.

Well, it's not actually mine. It's Leo's. But he let me borrow it.

He "bought" it on Sunday with game tickets at the Dave&Busters arcade store.

And O.K., I might have leaned on him a little bit to choose this particular item over the hundreds of other tempting choices. But he was an easy target. As soon as I said "If you get this, I could make a face with it," I had him.

He's a good boy.

It's a Pin Art pinscreen toy, one of those Lucite boxes crowded with rows and rows of tiny pins, that you can use to make an impression of just about anything that fits onto it's 8x5-inch surface.

And because I am having so much fun playing with it, I made two faces today. I couldn't choose just one, so that means ...

Ding! Ding! Ding!

It's "Twofer Tuesday" at A Face A Day!!!

(Oh, yeah. Leo also let me borrow his balsa wood skeleton for the Medusa face. This kid has the best stuff. To show my appreciation, I gave his skeleton a little mustache before I put it back.)

It's beginning to look a lot like XXX-mas!

"The main reason Santa is so jolly is because 

he knows where all the bad girls live."

-- George Carlin

Craft store Santa dolls 11-9-13

"I keep three hoes, but don't call me Santa."

-- Nicki Minaj, "I Get Crazy"

Craft store Santa 11-9-13

Halloween is over, which can only mean two things:

Halloween shit is on sale for 99 percent off, and Christmas shit is flooding the shelves.

I went to the craft store, innocently looking for supplies and ideas, when I came across this tawdry scene -- a horny Santa doll with his red boxers shoved down around his ankles, exposing his nether regions, with a satisfied, silly grin under his beard, standing precariously close to a slim, naked girl doll with perky plastic tits who is trying to act all nonchalant, wide-eyed and aloof, looking the other way while she slips back into her little white loafers for her walk of shame.

Who do they think they're fooling?

Sheesh. Get a room. There are children in this store.

And I thought Christmas was supposed to be all about baby Jesus.

I guess you can't really blame the old guy, though.

Just look at Mrs. Santa down there on the end of the row. She really has let herself go. I mean, she's wearing the exact same boxers as her old man. She's wearing the exact same black boots as her old man. She even has the exact same tits as her old man, for crissakes! (All she needs is a beard and mustache. She'll get there. Give her time.)

They do say couples who've been together for a long time start to look like one another. But c'mon, man.

No wonder Santa dropped trou for a plastic piece of poontang.

Or ...

The label on the skinny chick's package says she contains "quality essentials for creating!" (His says his "1 pc" is "13 inches" which I think is an exaggeration. I can't even see it.) Maybe Kris Kringle is thinking about hanging up his red suit and passing the baton (get it? Baton?) to an heir. Mrs. K is clearly post menopausal, so what's a fella to do? Maybe he invited the skinny chick back to the "workshop" to "make something."

Or maybe this Christmas, just for a change of pace, he just finally decided to get a little something he wanted.

P.S., does anyone else think it's funny that the skinny chick is buck naked, except that they gave her shoes? What the fuck?

Well, anyway. Just wanted to let you all know what kind of skanky merchandise is hanging around my local Pat Catan's. 'Tis the season.

What's the difference?

"Persons appear to us according to the light 

we throw upon them from our own minds."

-- Laura Ingalls Wilder

Self portrait 11-5-13

"Our differences do matter,

but our common humanity matters more."

-- Bill Clinton

"While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph 

can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, 

there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see."

-- Dorothea Lange

"He said look behind your own soul

And the person that you'll see

Just might remind you of me.

I laugh, I love, I hope, I try

I hurt, I need, I fear, I cry

And I know you do the same things, too

So we're really not that different, me and you."

-- Collin Raye, "Not That Different"

Switcharoo

"'Changing the Face' can change nothing. 

But 'Facing the Change' can change everything."

-- Unknown

Self portrait refrigerator magnets 11-1-13

"To keep our faces toward change, 

and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate,

 is strength undefeatable."

-- Helen Keller

"My refrigerator is powerful.
In fact, it has a direct link to my overall well-being."

-- Kris Carr

Self portrait magnets (2) 11-1-13

Self portrait magnets  (3) 11-1-13 

I made refrigerator magnets of my face!


I shot a bunch of different pictures with different eyes, glasses, mouths, facial hair, etc.

I can change faces around any which way I want in endless combinations.

It's pretty addictive.


Make your own and stick them on the fridge, or the filing cabinet, or wherever!

Self portrait magnets (4) 11-1-13

Hours of fun for the whole family!

Well, maybe not hours, but at least it will give you something to do while you're waiting for your toast.

Do the ripe thing

"One day, there's a hand that goes over the face and changes it.

You look like an apple that isn't young anymore."

-- Greta Garbo

Shrunken apple face 10-20-13

"It's a good thing that beauty is only skin deep,

or I'd be rotten to the core."

-- Phyllis Diller

"No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace 

as I have seen in one autumnal face."

-- John Donne

"Delicious Autumn!"

-- George Eliot

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then what about a face a day?

And what happens if the face is also an apple?

Or, what if it's an apple disguised as a face?

Wait. 

Wouldn't that be a "fapple"?

OK, now I have a headache.

I think I need a doctor.

I carved this little face in an apple from one of my backyard apple trees.

I let it dry out for a few days until he got good and wrinkly and shrunken.

It's not technically a "shrunken head" though because those are made with actual severed human heads. And while I do sacrifice for my art, it's not that kind of sacrifice. 

I'm no head hunter.

Which means ...

Ding, ding, ding!

It's time for A Face A Day fun fact!

Did you know the term "head hunter" refers to the practice of killing people to harvest their heads for trophies and rituals, and also in order to meet the demands of Western collectors as well as tourists who wanted shrunken heads as souvenirs?

Um. Gross.

Wouldn't a cute snow globe be just as nice?

How about a fun t-shirt or a coffee mug?

Couldn't you just take a few snap shots?

I mean, who says "Honey, remind me to stop by the souvenir shop after snorkeling. I want to pick up some postcards and a severed human head. I told the kids we'd bring them something."

Who looks at a dried up, shrunken, severed human head and says, wistfully, "Remember that awesome trip to Peru? We should go back."

What souvenir shop owner checks inventory and says, "Ralph, make sure to order some more shot glasses and thimbles on Monday. Oh, and we're running low on severed human heads. Can you get on that please?"

Will they allow a shrunken head in your carry-on, or do they make you check it with your other luggage?

Hey, whatever keeps food on the table.

Nice wig, Janis. What's it made of?

"Medusa is your mom?" he asked.

 "Dude, that sucks for you."

-- Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

Self portrait 10-19-13

"Naturally curly hair is a curse, and don't ever let anyone tell you different."

-- Mary Ann Shaffer, 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

"She's fabulous, but she's evil."

-- Mean Girls

"Versace, Versace, Medusa head on me like I'm 'Luminati."

-- Drake, "Versace"

In my dual-purpose quest to come up with an October full of "disguise" faces, and come up with a good Halloween costume, I made myself this neat Medusa wig out of rubber snakes from the toy store!

Mad props to the nice clerk at my local Toys R Us, who helped me dig out all of the snakes they had in the way back on the bottom shelf of the store's "dollar deals" section.  

Tabula rasa

"Man is a creature who walks in two worlds 

and traces upon the walls of his cave

the wonders and the nightmare experiences

of his spiritual pilgrimage."

-- Morris West

Discovery of the very first "A Face A Day" blog 10-18-13

"I've always thought that one of the most intriguing moments in human history 

was the birth of artistic imagination."

-- Kathryn Lasky

"One of the strangest things is the act of creation.

You are faced with a blank slate -- a page, a canvas,

a block of stone or wood, a silent musical instrument.

You then look inside yourself.

You pull and tug and squeeze and fish around

for slippery raw shapeless things that swim like fish made of cloud vapor

and fill you with living clamor.

You latch onto something.

And you bring it forth out of your head like Zeus giving birth to Athena.

And as it comes out, it takes shape and tangible form.

It drips on the canvas, and slides through your pen,

it springs forth and resonates into the musical strings,

and slips along the edge of the sculptor's tool onto the surface of the wood or marble.

You have given it cohesion.

You have brought forth something ordered and beautiful out of nothing.

You have glimpsed the divine."

-- Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Female Figure (or Sibyl with Tabula Rasa), 1648
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez 

Okay, so I may be stretching the "disguise" theme a little bit. But it's my blog, so bear with me.

Today's "disguised" face is a blank slate disguised as a cave wall decorated with my silly attempt at a prehistoric cave drawing. My son Leo found this flat, smooth piece of slate when he was out squirrel hunting last week, and gave it to me as a gift. He said he figured I could come up with something creative to do with it.

Smart kid.

Even though today's nod to the primitive origins of artistic expression is light-hearted and simplistic, it is a subject I take very seriously, because I encounter it daily. Here's the scenario: 

I need a face for the blog, but ideas have dried up. My mind is a blank. My creative tank feels empty. I wonder, will this be the day I don't come up with something?

Then something burbles deep down inside. I see it. I watch it. I observe it as it wiggles, as it swims, as it crawls to the edge of the primordial pond and drags itself onto the shore with its little tail and flippers. It sprouts legs. It stands upright. It walks. I let it go where it wants to go, do what it wants to do. Out of my "nothing," the once-blank slate is filled.

I am neither an anthropologist nor an art historian, but the way I see it, despite our evolutionary advances over primitive people from the dawn of humanity, we have a lot in common with our ancient ancestors when it comes to art. Because the way I see it, artistic expression is not an intellectual thing. It's a visceral thing. It's a gut-level thing that rises up out of our own inner primordial ooze. 

Our minds may be superior to our prehistoric ancestors', but our guts are the same. Our hearts are the same.

In my experience, intellectualizing the creative process -- thinking about it too much -- kills it. I've found that I have a much higher success rate if I just let it evolve and stay out of its way.

I love the quote at the top of today's post, from Australian writer Morris West. It reminds me why I do what I do, why I make the pictures that I make. It's the same reason cave dwellers drew on their walls. It's why they picked up a rock or a burned stick and scraped and rubbed and drew images (sometimes crude, sometimes extremely sophisticated) for others to see.  

It's why I pick up my camera.

It's my way of saying "I was here, and this is who I was while I walked the Earth."