The challenge on illustrationfriday.com this week is “hats“. I really couldn’t decide on one idea, so I did two. This is the FIRST idea. Here is the second.
Over-50 communities and retirement homes across the country have seen vicious gangs appear. Gangs of desperate old ladies terrorizing shopping malls and Sunday brunches everywhere. They dress in gang colors of red and purple and they call themselves “The Red Hat Society”. Wherever they go, they strike fear in regular, upstanding citizens. These Red Hatters have been known to completely take over entire rooms in restaurants. They giggle and cackle and prance around in their decorated red hats and wild purple wardrobe. They commandeer buses and descend on malls and hotels and casinos. Sometimes, they even bring their own oxygen with them.
Their origins can be traced to a poem, written in 1961, by Jenny Joseph called “Warning” (a very ominous title, indeed). The first verse reads:
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on guns and ammunition
And combat boots and flak jackets.
I shall push people who get in my way
And steal stuff from shops and totally ignore alarm bells
And fire my .45 into the air for no good reason
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my red hat and make people turn their heads
And I will kick their asses if they laugh and point
And I sure as hell won’t take any shit from “the man”.
They are dangerous. Run for your lives!
The challenge word on illustration friday is “hats“.
With the impending retirement of Jay Leno as host of the Tonight Show, it’s hard to believe that there is almost an entire generation who doesn’t know who Johnny Carson was. For many, Leno has always been the host of the Tonight Show. When Johnny stepped down on May 22, 1992, it most definitely was the end of an era. For 30 years, Ed McMahon’s introduction of “Heeeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny” was the beginning of America’s bedtime ritual.
The Tonight Show featured many characters during its run. One of the most popular was Carnac the Magnificent. With the name taken from the stage name Johnny used as a magician, Carnac was “a seer, sage and soothsayer”. America’s excitement piqued when this “vistor from the East” was announced by Ed. The bit featured Johnny, decked out in an impossibly large turban and cape, as the psychic, who would divine the answers to the questions that were in envelopes “hermetically sealed” and had been kept in “a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls’ porch since noon” that day. One at a time, Johnny would raise the envelopes to his forehead and announce an answer like “Dippity-do”. Then, he would tear open the envelope and read the question printed on a card: “What forms on your Dippity early in the morning?” The audience would laugh or groan (or both). And so it went.
A: Bible belt.
Q: What holds up Oral Roberts’ pants?
A: An unmarried woman.
Q: What was Elizabeth Taylor between 3 and 5 pm on June 1, 1952?
A: Clean air, a virgin and a gas station open on Sunday.
Q: Name three things you won’t find in Los Angeles.
If a particularly bad joke met with a large groan from the studio audience, Carnac would curse them with “May a crazy holy man set fire to your nose hair.” or “May a queasy camel freshen up your mother’s evening bath.”
I haven’t watched the Tonight Show since 1992. I think I know why. Who could possibly top Johnny Carson?
He was a tough act to follow.
The challenge this week at sugarfrostedgoodness.com is “black and white“.
When presented with this challenge, the first image that came to mind was Salvador Dalí. I thought that the topic of “black and white” could give me the chance to experiment, as it is so non-specific. And what better experimental subject than Dalí.
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Púbol was born on May 11, 1904, in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain. Dalí’s older brother, also named Salvador, had died nine months earlier. His father, also named Salvador, was a middle-class lawyer and notary whose strict disciplinarian approach was tempered by his wife, (not named Salvador) who encouraged her son’s artistic endeavors. When he was five, Dalí was taken to his brother’s grave and told by his parents that he was his brother’s reincarnation, which he came to believe. Dalí had an affinity for doing unusual things to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork. He didn’t care what his critics thought of him and his actions. He relished the attention and enjoyed the feeling of pissing people off. When signing autographs for fans, Dalí would always keep their pens.
Dalí once said, “There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.”
I can relate to that.
