The challenge this week on Monday Artday is “getting ready”.
…for Opening Day!
I have mentioned before. I love baseball. I love watching baseball. I love going to baseball games. There are some things I don’t like about baseball (namely Brett Myers), but overall, I love it.
I have been a Phillies season ticket holder since 1996. That means I suffered through some pretty lousy years. I saw some seasons end with the Phillies so close to a championship, only to blow it in the final week. Last season, of course, was different. The Phils won the National League East pennant on the last day of the season. I was there. I was there among a deafening crowd. A crowd that screamed for nine straight innings. A crowd made up, mostly, of people who had never been to a baseball game in their lives and were merely jumping on the “post-season bandwagon”. Every one of them had loved the Phillies since…well….last week. As it played out, the Phillies post-season lasted three games and the temporary Phillies fans went back to follow the pathetic Philadelphia Eagles or American Idol.
I wouldn’t consider myself a “Phillies Fan”. It’s just that I love baseball and I live in Philadelphia so I have no choice if I want to see a baseball game. Sure, there are several minor leagues in the area. But, if I want to see minor league-caliber baseball, I’ll stick with the Phils.
I also worked as a soda vendor at Veterans Stadium when I was a kid. Veterans Stadium was home to the Phillies for 33 seasons. “The Vet” was, thankfully, imploded in March 2004. In April 2004, Citizens Bank Park opened. The new home of the Phillies is a beautiful, state-of-the-art facility that rivals many of the great parks in Major League Baseball. I’ve been to other parks in other cities. Citizens Bank Park is one of the best. Just hurry up and see it before the Phillies fans shit it up.
The Philadelphia sports fan. An unusual creature, that fan. They are nationally known for their aggressive and angry behavior. Everyone knows that we are the fans that booed Santa Claus. I’ve seen a player make a spectacular, multi-run saving catch in the top of an inning and come up to bat in the same inning, pop-up and get chided by the same crowd, like he just shot their dog.
And it’s THESE guys.
These guys show up every year. (If not them, then someone like them.) On Opening Day, they love the Phillies. They’ll scream, “The Phillies are going ALL THE WAY, BABY! ALL THE WAY TO THE FOOKIN’ WORL’ SERIES! DA METS FOOKIN’ SUCK! THE PHILS ARE DA BEST!”
Until the first time Pat Burrell stands at the plate with his bat on his shoulder, thinking about his fifty million dollar contract, while three balls sail unfettered through his strike zone.
Then, the screams become, “THEY SUCK! DA PHILLIES SUCK! Hey, where’s the beer guy?”
SFG: fire
The challenge this week on sugarfrostedgoodness.com is “fire“.
Edward Slovik was arrested and served jail time for several incidents of petty theft, breaking and entering and disturbing the peace, between 1937 and 1939. Slovik was classified as unfit for duty in the U.S. military because of his criminal record.
He met Antoinette Wisniewski while working at a plumbing company in Dearborn, Michigan, and the two were married in 1942. The intensity of World War II forced the military to lower their standards in order to meet demands for replacement troops. As a result, Slovik’s draft classification was changed and he was drafted into the infantry in January 1944.
During training, Slovik earned the reputation of being a good-natured buddy and learned to fire a rifle (which he hated) and other weapons. He was assigned to the 28th Infantry Division, stationed in France.
En route to the front, when his group of replacements was fired on, they stopped and dug in. Slovik and a friend became separated from the others. The two men soon came upon a camp of Canadian infantry and “joined” it, remaining with them for six weeks. Slovik finally rejoined his division, but he deserted almost immediately upon returning, ignoring the pleas of a friend not to leave. Slovik informed his company commander that he was “too scared” to serve in a rifle company and asked to be reassigned to a rear area unit. Slovik told the commander that he would run away if he were assigned to a rifle unit and asked him if that would constitute desertion. The commander confirmed that it would and refused his request for reassignment, assigning him to a rifle platoon.
A day later, Slovik voluntarily surrendered to an officer of the 28th Infantry Division, handing him a signed confession of desertion. However, he firmly stated he would run away again if forced to go into combat. The officer warned Slovik that his written confession was damaging evidence and advised him to destroy it. Slovik refused and he was confined in the division stockade.
Just prior to trial, the division judge offered Slovik a deal under which the court-martial action would be dropped if he would go back to his unit. Slovik refused. As a result, Slovik was tried and convicted of desertion, although he pleaded not guilty at the trial. The sentence of death was voted unanimously.
Slovik wrote a letter to General Dwight D. Eisenhower pleading for clemency, but no basis for clemency was found. On December 23, in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower confirmed the death sentence. It was held that he “directly challenged the authority” of the United States and that “future discipline depends upon a resolute reply to this challenge.” Slovik was to pay for his defiant attitude and he was to be made an example.
Slovik was executed by firing squad in January 1945. None of the riflemen so much as flinched, believing Slovik had gotten what he deserved. Slovik’s last words were “They’re not shooting me for deserting the United Stated Army – thousands of guys have done that. They’re shooting me for bread I stole when I was 12 years old.”
Although over twenty-one thousand soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War IIincluding forty-nine death sentencesonly Slovik’s death sentence was carried out. He remains the only American soldier to be executed for desertion since the Civil War.
The man didnt refuse to serve, he just refused to kill.
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IF: theory
The illustrationfriday.com word this week is another abstract one. The word is “theory”.
“Anne Elk’s Theory on Brontosauruses” is a sketch from an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
This skit features Graham Chapman as a television interviewer and John Cleese in preposterous drag as the palaeontologist, Anne Elk.
The plot of the skit is that the interviewee, Anne Elk, cannot bring herself to describe the actual basis of her supposed new palaeontological theory on brontosauruses. Ms. Elk spends most of the interview clearing her throat and making assertions like “My theory, which belongs to me, is mine.”
In the end, Miss Elk’s theory on brontosauruses is revealed as “All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end.” Her true concern is that she receive full credit for devising this new theory stating, “That is the theory that I have and which is mine and what it is, too.” The interviewer, is disbelief, answers, “Well, Anne, this theory of yours seems to have hit the nail right on the head.” To which Anne adds, ” … and it’s mine.”
The skit coined the concept of “Elk Theories” to describe scientific observations that are not theories but merely minimal accounts.
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SFG: joy 2
The challenge word on sugarfrostedgoodness.com this week is “joy”.
This is the second of two illustrations for the topic.
With his calm, patient nature, Bob Ross came to prominence as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, a long-running instructional program braodcast on public television. The show continues in reruns, even after Ross’s death in 1995.
Ross spent twelve years keeping medical records for the U.S. Air Force, which is where he first started painting. After leaving the Air Force, he studied with William Alexander before becoming famous worldwide with his own television program, The Magic of Oil Painting, also a public television staple.
During each half-hour segment of The Joy of Painting, Ross would instruct viewers in the art of oil painting using a quick-study technique that kept colors to a minimum and broke paintings down into simple steps that anyone could follow. Ross acknowledged that the appearances of the landscapes he painted were strongly influenced by his years living in Alaska, where he was stationed for the majority of his Air Force career.
He repeatedly stated on the show his belief that everyone had artistic talent and could become accomplished artists given time, practice, and encouragement, and to this end was often fond of saying, “We don’t make mistakes, we just have happy little accidents.” When asked about his laid-back approach to painting and eternally calm and contented demeanor, he once commented: “I got a letter from somebody a while back, and they said, ‘Bob, everything in your world seems to be happy.’ That’s for sure. That’s why I paint. It’s because I can create the kind of world that I want, and I can make this world as happy as I want it. Shoot, if you want bad stuff, watch the news.”
Ross utilized the wet-on-wet oil painting technique, in which the painter continues adding paint on top of still wet paint rather than waiting a lengthy amount of time to allow each layer of paint to dry. Combining this method with the use of giant house-painting brushes, large painting knives and fan brushes allowed Ross to paint trees, water, clouds and mountains in a matter of seconds.
In many episodes of The Joy of Painting, Ross noted that one of his favorite parts of painting was cleaning the brush, specifically the act of drying off a brush, which he had dipped in cleaner, by rapping it against the easel frame. He would often smile and even laugh out loud regularly during this practice as he, in his words, “Beat the devil out of it”.
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SFG: joy 1
The challenge word on sugarfrostedgoodness.com this week is “joy”.
This is the first of two illustrations for the topic.
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Greater Manchester. The band consisted of Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris.
Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences, developing a sound and style that helped pioneer the post-punk movement of the late 1970s. Joy Division’s debut album, Unknown Pleasures, was released in 1979 on independent record label Factory Records, and drew critical acclaim from the British press. Despite the band’s rapid success, vocalist Ian Curtis was beset with depression and personal difficulties, including a dissolving marriage and his diagnosis with epilepsy. Curtis found it increasingly difficult to perform at live concerts, and often had seizures during performances.
On the eve of the band’s first American tour, Curtis, overwhelmed with depression, committed suicide. Early on the morning of May 18, 1980, Curtis hanged himself in his kitchen. Curtis’s wife Deborah, discovered his body when she returned around midday.
Joy Division’s posthumously released second album, Closer, and the single “Love Will Tear Us Apart” became the band’s highest charting releases. After the death of Curtis, the remaining members reformed as New Order, achieving significant critical and commercial success.
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Monday Artday: favorite book
The Monday Artday challenge this week is “favorite book”.
I actually did an illustration for my favorite book a while ago. My favorite book is “The Emperors of Chocolate” by Joel Glenn Brenner. The illustration I did was for the word “chocolate”.
For this challenge, I chose a book that is easily the most affecting and haunting book I ever read.
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr. was written between 1957 and 1964. It was finally published in 1964. In the Eisenhower era of “Leave It to Beaver” and “The Donna Reed Show“, this collection of short stories chronicled the lives of the dregs of society. Centered around The Greeks, a scummy dive diner near the Brooklyn Airbase, it brings to life the most disturbing, disgusting characters and their filthy, drug-filled, liquor-filled, perverted sex-filled existence. Written in a “stream-of-consciousness ” manner, Selby shows no mercy and no pity for his cast of addicts, spouse-abusers, junkies, pimps, prostitutes, transvestites, pedophiles, alcoholics, kiss-asses and other lowlifes. The book is difficult to read on both a structural and content level.
My mother talked about this book a lot when I was a teenager. She said it was the most memorable and gut-wrenching book she ever read. She also forbade me to read it. I finally read it twelve years after my mother died.
She was right.
if you read the book, you’ll get the joke in my illustration.
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IF: choose
The Illustration Friday challenge for this week is “choose“.
What’s it gonna be boy?
Come on.
I can wait all night
What’s it gonna be boy – yes or no?
What’s it gonna be boy –
yes
or
no?
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Monday Artday: half beast
This week’s Monday Artday challenge is an unusual one ― “half beast“.
Somewhere between Bigfoot and werewolves is the legend of the wendigo. The wendigo is a figure appearing in Algonquian Indian mythology. In remote forest areas, sometimes groups of travellers, hunters or campers were cut off from the rest of their party by the bitter snows and ice of the north woods. Conditions became desperate and cannibalism became a necessity in order to survive. The belief was when a human ate human flesh, he would become a wendigo. Among northern Algonquian cultures, cannibalism, even to save one’s own life, was viewed as a serious taboo; the proper response to famine was suicide or resignation to death. On one level, the Wendigo myth thus worked as a deterrent and a warning against resorting to cannibalism; those who did would become Wendigo monsters themselves.
Though all of the descriptions of the creature vary slightly, the Wendigo is generally said to have glowing eyes, long yellowed fangs and overly long tongues. Most have a sallow, yellowish skin and are covered with matted hair. They give off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition. They are tall and lanky and are driven by a horrible hunger.
Wendigos were embodiments of gluttony, greed, and excess; never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they were constantly searching for new victims.
Native Americans actively believed in, and searched for, the Wendigo. One of the most famous Wendigo hunters was a Cree Indian named Jack Fiddler. He claimed to have killed at least 14 of the creatures in his lifetime, although the last murder resulted in his imprisonment at the age of 87. In October 1907, Fiddler and his brother, Joseph, were tried for the murder of a Cree Indian woman. They both pleaded guilty to the crime but defended themselves by stating that the woman had been possessed by the spirit of a Wendigo and was on the verge of transforming into one entirely. According to their defense, she had to be killed before she murdered other members of the tribe. The brothers were to be tired. Just before the trial, Jack escaped and hanged himself. Joseph went to trial and was sentenced to death. No word on his last meal.
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IF: blanket
The weekly challenge from Illustration Friday is “blanket“.
It Happened One Night is a 1934 romantic comedy, directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite tries to get out from under her father’s thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter. It is one of the most beloved comedies of all time (It was Friz Freling’s favorite film) and is responsible for bringing lowly Columbia Pictures out of what was known as “Poverty Row”.
Clark Gable, who was under contract to MGM, was on loan to Columbia Pictures, as a punishment for his raucous off-camera behavior. Columbia was considered a lesser studio at the time of the film’s release. Both MGM and Warner Brothers would loan out temperamental actors to Columbia as a “humbling experience.” After filming was completed, Claudette Colbert complained to a friend, “I just finished the worst picture in the world.”
Gable and Colbert weren’t the first choices for the picture. Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy were originally offered the roles, but each turned the script down. The role of Ellie Andrews was also turned down by Miriam Hopkins, Margaret Sullavan, Constance Bennett and Loretta Young. Bette Davis wanted the role, but was under contract with Warner Brothers and refused to loan her. Carole Lombard was unable to accept, because of a schedule conflict.
Claudette Colbert agreed to appear only when her salary was doubled to $50,000 and on the condition that her part be completed in four weeks so she could take an already planned vacation. When Clark Gable showed up for work on the first day, he said grimly, “Let’s get this over with.”
Filming began in a tense atmosphere as Gable and Colbert were dissatisfied with the quality of the script. However, they established a friendly working relationship and found that the script was no worse than those of many of their earlier films.
It Happened One Nightbecame the first movie to win all five major Oscars Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture. (That’s a feat only achieved by two more pictures, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in 1976 and The Silence of the Lambs in 1992.) Claudette Colbert disliked the film so much she didn’t even attend the Oscars; when she won for Best Actress she was found about to leave on a trip. She was pulled off of a train and rushed to the ceremony, where she made her acceptance speech in a traveling suit.
In the very famous “Walls of Jericho” scene, one of the highlights of the film, Gable divides the twin-bedded bedroom into two parts by stringing up a clothesline. Then, as he drapes a blanket over the line between their two beds, Colbert dryly observes: “That, I suppose, makes everything quite all right?” He explains, “Well, I like privacy when I retire. Yes, I’m very delicate in that respect. Prying eyes annoy me. Behold the walls of Jericho! Uh, maybe not as thick as the ones that Joshua blew down with his trumpet, but a lot safer. You see, uh, I have no trumpet.”
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SFG: round
The sugarfrostedgoodness.com weekly challenge is “round“.
What happened on the sunny afternoon of November 13, 1982, would change the lives of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini and Duk Koo Kim and the future of boxing. By the time it was over, Kim lay in a coma from which he would never awaken, dying five days later at the Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas.
Ray Mancini inherited his nickname from his father, veteran boxer Lenny “Boom Boom” Mancini. The name perfectly suited the younger Mancini’s wild, “whirlwind” fighting style. After a failed attempt against Alexis Arguello, Mancini defeated Arturo Frias and became World Lightweight Champion. Mancini’s first defense of his title went easily with a 6th round knockout. But it was his next fight that would change boxing forever.
Duk Koo Kim was brave, but he was wrongly ranked No. 1 by the World Boxing Association. And while his record was 17-1-1, he had but one knockout and had never been tested on a big stage nor faced the kind of force Mancini was at the time. Kim had to labor mightily to get his weight down to the 135-pound limit in the final days leading up to their showdown. Kim made weight, but not without draining himself. Yet round after brutal round, his reaction to being hammered by Mancini was to do what real fighters do. He fought back. He fought back bravely despite obviously hopeless circumstances. He fought back enough that the referee could never justify leaping between them to end Mancini’s bombing raids even in the 13th round, when Mancini rocked Kim repeatedly with 40 unanswered shots. It was a fight filled with action, but Mancini had an easy time hitting Kim during the 14 rounds the fight lasted. Kim left the ring on a stretcher. He sustained brain injuries that led to his death five days later. Later, it was reported that taped to the mirror in Kim’s dressing room was a note that Kim had written to himself. It read: “Kill or be killed.”
Mancini went to the funeral in South Korea and fell into a deep depression afterwards. He said that the hardest moments came when people approached him and asked if he was the boxer who “killed” Duk Koo Kim. Mancini went through a period of reflection, as he blamed himself for Kim’s death. Kim’s mother committed suicide four months after the fight. The bout’s referee, Richard Green, committed suicide in July 1983.
As a result of this bout, the WBC took steps to shorten its title bouts to a distance of 12 rounds. The WBA and WBO followed in 1988 and the IBF did in 1989. Ray had one final fight in April 1992, against former lightweight champion Greg Haugen. Ray was just a mere shadow of his old self, having only 2 fights in seven years, and the fight was stopped in round seven.
Some years later, singer Warren Zevon wrote a song called “Boom Boom Mancini.” Among the lyrics are these lines:
When they asked him who was responsible/For the death of Duk Koo Kim
He said, “Someone should have stopped the fight,” and told me it was him.
They made hypocrite judgments after the fact/But the name of the game is be hit and hit back
In fact, Mancini had never said the fight should have been stopped, agreeing with most ringside observers that Kim’s refusal to retreat made that impossible until he was finally knocked to the floor.