Close Your Eyes: an anti-lullaby

This cartoon was inspired by Daniel Glasser's wonderful "Close Your Eyes" song. You can listen to it here (streaming Daniel Glasser version) or here (Dandelion Wine version, you'll need to register to download the file). Here are the lyrics or you can download this PDF file with chords.

This is DEFINITELY not a lullaby for children! When performing this song, Daniel is also very good at noticing which people in the audience are hearing it for the first time, and focusing his "menace" on them. :-D Here's Daniel's story behind the song, which includes a link to an MP3 file.

I'm starting a new Flickr set of drawings inspired by songs. I figure this'll be a fun way to introduce some of you to filk. In each case, I will post a link to the lyrics and (if available) to a soundfile in the comments section for that image.

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. Column topic: "Online Tools For Writers (Part 2)." Thanks again to Rand for his inspiration this strip, and also to Joey Shoji for the Gran Couva (see column).

I am sooooooooooo happy that spring seems to have finally arrived in Toronto. Has anyone seen the "Spring Break" episode in Northern Exposure? Some days I can really identify with that end-of-winter stir craziness. Check out the spring flowers in our garden:



And here are some fun links from friends:

Natalie Portman, Gangsta Rapper (from Ray). Speaking of Natalie Portman, Jeff and I both saw and enjoyed "V for Vendetta." So Natalie Portman CAN act!

William Shatner singing to George Lucas (nicked from Shannachie's LJ)

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Illustration Friday: Spotted

The illustrations on this page were done for Illustration Friday. This week's topic: "Spotted." Three very different interpretations, obviously. All were done in Corel Painter 9.5. The first was done with the Croquil and Gouache brushes. The second was mainly having fun with the Leaky pen brush. The third: experiment with paper textures.



Looks like Jeff has pneumonia. :-( He went to see the doctor yesterday and she took chest x-rays, prescribed antibiotics. She also told him that if he got worse over the weekend, he should go to Emergency. Fortunately it does look like he's getting better.

I've been renting a ton of DVDs to help amuse him during his conscious hours in bed. Last night, we watched "Pride and Prejudice" (the one starring Keira Knightley). He liked it more than he expected; I still prefer the A&E version, which I only recently watched again. Colin Firth is the BEST Mr. D'Arcy.


(Don't worry, this is not Jeff :-D)

Thanks to those who replied to my paranoid question in LJ about pneumonia. As I said in my post, I'm perfectly healthy but would still rather NOT give Jeff germs to Eva and Rafael as a wedding gift. From people's posts, it does sound as if I don't have to worry about it as long as I don't kiss either of them. Looking forward to seeing Eva and Rafael this evening! Eva is likely in a plane from Germany even as I write this, winging her way across the Pond to marry her true love. :-D

Thanks also to Phil M. for pointing out that the red-headed sparrow on my feeder is likely a House Finch. This morning, Jeff noticed a goldfinch. Yay, glad the goldfinches are back! I've replaced the niger seed in my finch feeder in hopes of attracting more of them. Richard S. has suggested Peterson's Field Guide as a good reference (thanks, Richard!).

It was only a few days ago that I realized this coming weekend was a holiday weekend. I'm working today, of course; as a freelancer, I find that Friday/Monday holidays are often just like any other day except that the shops are all closed.

To those who ARE taking today off...have a great holiday, everyone!

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spring, mouse mover and autocloning

Above: The squirrels ate most of the bulbs planted around this one crocus in our front garden, but at least this little guy survived, yay!

This is our first spring living in a residential neighbourhood, and I love it: seeing gardens filling with colour, buds appearing on trees, kids playing out on the street...it's quite the contrast to living in the downtown core where the only way to tell that spring has arrived is the increase in tourist traffic and Spring Sale signs in the stores.

I still haven't gotten over the novelty of having our own garden. I walk around the house every morning and almost always find something new: a green shoot that wasn't there before, more buds on our trees. I've also noticed a new type of bird on my Squirrelbuster birdfeeder I haven't seen before. It looks like a sparrow, but with a reddish tinge to its head and upper chest. From my research, it looks like it might be a Purple Finch or Cassin's Finch. (Thanks to Phil for pointing out that the bird I saw is more likely a House FInch).

Speaking of squirrels, remember I mentioned that I thought squirrels were digging their way into our house? And I heard them running around in our ductwork? Well, I borrowed a Mouse Mover from my dad-in-law and stuck it in my office...since then, the amount of animal noises have decreased radically; I hear the occasional scratching, as if something's giving a half-hearted attempt, but then it goes away. Apparently the Mouse Mover (tm) uses ultrasonic waves to repel mice, rats, squirrels and other rodents. I was highly skeptical at first, but it seems to be working.



Above: Michelle Dockrey and Allison Durno. Another Corel Painter 9.5 experiment. This time I made the Autoclone strokes larger but then manually worked on the faces with smaller Impressionist cloner brush strokes as well as Soft Clone. So far I don't think I'll be using the Autocloning feature much in the future...it's fun to play around with, but looks too computer-generated for my tastes.

Thanks to Comixpedia for the plug about Will Write For Chocolate this week.

Google Ego-Surfing Update

As of this morning...

poetry faq: I'm #1

office painting: I'm #3

long plane flights: I'm #1

squirrelbuster: I'm #1

snail crunch: I'm #2

demon squirrels: I'm #1

filking: I'm #1

food movies: I'm #1

queen street bead store: I'm #1

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Toronto, city of romance

Jeff's sick again, poor guy. :-( We've been sleeping in separate rooms so we can both get a good night's sleep.

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated! Column topic: "Useful online tools for freelance writers." I've also posted a poll in that column asking for suggestions for other online services and tools of use to writers. What's your favourite online dictionary and/or thesaurus, for example? Please post at the bottom of this page, thanks. And thanks to Rand Bellavia for his help with this week's WWFC strip!



I've been gradually working my way through the free training videos accompanying my new Corel 9.5 Painter upgrade, and am currently looking at the photo manipulation and auto-cloning tools. Here are some of my experiments, starting with a source photo of my friends, Michelle and Allison:




Click any image to see a larger version.

Two days until Allison, Jodi and I see Eva Wiest (of Summer and Fall fame), who is coming to Toronto to get married to Rafael! Ah, Toronto, the city of romance...

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Carolyn Brown kudos

The cartoon above was created for Illustration Friday. This week's topic was "Speed." I used the Croquil and Digital Watercolor brushes in Corel Painter 9.5.

Speaking of birthday cakes, happy birthday to my friend Rand today! :-)

Forgot to mention last week that I've updated my Will Write For Chocolate comic strip:



A few more notes re: FilKONtario...

I've already thanked the FKO concom for doing such a fantastic job, but wanted to add a few more extra thank-you notes:

Thanks to Katy, who played guitar during Franklin's rendition of the Knight and the Maiden in our concert.

Thanks to Eloise for generously bringing her photocopier to the convention for use by FKO attendees.

And special kudos to Carolyn Brown, who drove to Burlington and back in rush hour traffic at the beginning of the convention to help out Ookla The Mok after Adam's van broke down in Burlington with all the band equipment. Apparently Judith Hayman (who deserves kudos of her own for helping out Ookla in addition to her other constuff) offered Carolyn gas money but Carolyn asked that the money be donated to the n'MC fund instead, saying that it was all being part of the filk community.

Yay, Carolyn!




To FKO attendees: Do you know of any other people at the convention who deserve extra special thanks? Someone who helped or supported you in some small (or big) way during the weekend? Someone you saw working behind the scenes to help the convention run more smoothly, even in a small way? Feel free to post about them in this LJ comments section.

Below: Photo by Tony Fabris, from our concert at FilKONtario, from his Geekhackfilk.com site:



From left to right: Franklin, Jodi, Allison and me. You can see Tony's other FKO photos and video here. Tony Fabris and Michelle Dockrey will be the Guests of Honour at FilKONtario in 2008.


Just found out that Jeff, Maya and Alex Bohnhoff are Guests of Honor at Consonance next March! I'm a big fan of the Bohnhoffs, and so is Jeff (my Jeff, that is). When I mentioned the news, he suggested that perhaps we could both go to the convention next year (!). The exclamation mark is because this is the first time that Jeff has expressed any interest in going to a filk convention with me. I guess he enjoyed FilKONtario more than he expected. :-) Yay! Dave Rood is Interfilk Guest at Consonance next year, Kathy Mar is Toastperson and Gwen Knighton is the International Guest.

Speaking of anticipation of upcoming conventions...only 9 months until GAfilk! The members of Urban Tapestry are the Guests of Honor, Linda Melnick is the Toastmistress and Summer and Fall are Interfilk guests. Allison, Jodi and I are SO looking forward to this event, and it will be Allison's first GAfilk. We've already heard rumours that our friends Paul Kwinn, Franklin Gunkelmann and Juliane Honisch will be attending, which makes us look forward to the con even more.


My FKO report:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 3b
Part 4

My FKO photos

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