Grotesque with Crucifix

In the Old Market in Omaha, there are a pair of winged lions on the side of one of the buildings. I love these sculptures and have to visit them every time I'm in the area. Well, tonight I noticed something different about them. They were wearing crucifixes. I'm not sure why someone would put gaudy plastic crucifixes (which look like they might glow in the dark) onto these grotesques. Were they exorcising evil spirits? Converting the statues to Christianity? Or just decorating their favorite architectural pets? Regardless of the reason, I think the lions look rather cute with their new bling.


(They're too far apart to photograph together with any respectable amount of detail, so I'm only showing the left one. The right one is a mirror image, except with a little less soot staining its face. Also, the other lion's crucifix has white beads.)

Doodles

I went to the library at The Kaneko today with my laptop, planning to sit and write. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926 German silent animated film) was playing on one of the TVs, and I ended up totally engrossed in its awesome beauty. I also ended up not writing a single word, nor even cracking open my laptop. I got out my sketchbook and doodled a page. Enjoy!


My favorite is the latte-bearing Cheshire Cat down in the lower right corner.

Cerberus Wants to Go for Walkies

I made Cerberus for my dad for Father's Day. He (they?) looks so cheerful, waiting for walkies.

Trading Spaces: Feline Edition

At every meal, morning or evening, Murphy walks around my ankles in the kitchen, while Luna waits beneath the table in the other room. I put the first bowl of food down for Murphy, then while he eats, I go to the other room to fetch Luna. Luna won't come to the kitchen of his own accord. He waits for me to pick him up and carry him to his food.

Except for tonight.

I prepared the two bowls of cat food and set one down, and the cat that had been worming around my ankles dove into it. My eyes fell upon the entrance to the kitchen, where Murphy watched in horror.

Yes, it was Luna who had been in the kitchen, rubbing my ankles, and who claimed the first bowl of food, which was in Murphy's spot.

Murphy then ran away and hid under the bed. While I was fumbling in the darkness under the bed looking for him, he slipped away. I found him under the table in the other room, in Luna's spot, waiting. So I picked him up and carried him to the kitchen, and set him down with the second bowl of food in Luna's normal spot.

Crazy kitties, messing with my head.

Units of Measurement

Writers come up with all kinds of strange questions. Would a particular character estimate the size of area in "football fields" or "city blocks"? Trying to decide which would better suit the scene I'm writing, I discovered converter for football fields and city blocks. Wow, you really can find anything imaginable online.

(One city block equals about 0.88 football fields, if you care.)

Cute Chicks

Some birds built a nest on top of my friends' floodlight, just outside their garage. There are baby birdies! So cute!

Dragon? What Dragon?

I told my boss how much I enjoyed Wicked, and she said that her son had been particularly impressed with the dragon. But I didn't see a dragon. I love dragons, so surely I would have noticed if one had been included in the play. I wondered if it was a difference in staging, but she assured me that her son had seen the show at the Orpheum here in Omaha, same as me. She also mentioned that the dragon had been mentioned in the newspaper article about the musical. Later, I checked the Omaha World-Herald, and sure enough, I found a picture. And while the rest of the Orpheum's stage looked familiar, the dragon most certainly did not.

I was mystified. How could I have missed a gigantic dragon whose wings spanned the entire stage? Either the prop had been damaged and had been removed sometime before the performance I attended, or I had simply overlooked it.

How is that possible?

Well, human perception is a strange thing. Watch this video of a perception experiment, then test yourself with a different experiment. (Or better yet, test someone who doesn't know what exactly they're being tested for.)

Change blindness! The human brain can not process all of the visual data the eyes receive, and so it filters based on attention. Whatever you are focusing your attention on is what you see, and you don't notice anything else.

Apparently, I was paying so much attention to the witches and the flying monkeys that I never saw the gargantuan dragon sprawled across the top of the set, even though it would have been roughly eye-level with where I was sitting.

But I felt better after I asked both of the people who attended the show with me, and learned that neither of them saw the dragon either. So that makes a case for the dragon simply not being there anymore. However, to be honest, I just can't be sure.