Happy Halloween!

Blicky's been prancing all over the house and purring these days -- and not being very helpful with the holiday preparations I might add.  He's just so elated about a very useful award we will be receiving. Cynthia at Muse Swings has awarded us with the highly coveted A-Musing Fountain of Youth Give-a-Way! I found her blog because she left absolutely hysterical comments at another site. I always look forward to reading what she has to say because it ranges from the profound to the seriously funny. So Blicky and I will be the new owners of a little jar from the fountain of youth.

Now this news came just in the nick of time. My beauty treatments have gotten a tad costly and, well frankly a bit disconcerting...

I think we look pretty good for our ages though. I was asked to post "before" and "after" pictures. I think this is a great shot of us. We finally decided on matching attire this year:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Misaki Kawai + Art - Pretense = Pure Joy

Uh oh, are we lost again? I knew I should have hired a different guide at the ICA. This one kept on jumping on the benches, singing and trying to steal stuff from the gift shop. Was that supposed to be part of the tour? We're going on a pretend museum visit and studio tour today at Blicky Kitty, because we saw a show of Misaki Kawai's last year at the ICA in Boston and I just keep thinking about her art. OK, let's get in the time machine...where should we go? Weimar Germany to try and kill Hitler? 10 BC so we can find out what Mary Magdalene thinks about Dan Brown? 1986 and warn Geraldo Rivera not to open Al Capone's vault on live tv? Naaaah, lets go back to 2007 and see some cool art. OK, the driver seems distracted by that furry gentleman in orange -- "Sir, could you please have a seat?" OK, everyone make play car sounds, "brrroooooommm, broooooommm..." Oh that was so fast! Here we are!

Wow this is so cool! She's created a whole installation using papier-mâché, wood, fabric, and other materials like felt, stickers, and yarn. The painting on the walls of the gallery really helps suggest the playful movement of the little space cars buzzing around the station. There are so many details to explore when you peek in the little rooms. The station is inhabited by figures of the artist, her friends as well as her favorite cultural figures, like John Lennon or Casper the Friendly Ghost. Her style is so winning and joyous it made me wonder what her paintings might look like. *Rriiing rrrring.* Oh sorry, that's my cell. "Hello? Misaki Kawai? This is such a coincidence! I was just blogging about you. You what? You're a big fan of Blicky Kitty and you want us to come visit your studio in Brooklyn? Thanks! That would be so great, but how would we... Just tell the time machine driver? OK, thanks! See you soon!

OK, here we are. Oh, there's a guy from VBStv there too so we'll just go in with him (click here for video, part one). Emily Brouillet, Assistant Curator at the ICA writes that her work is part of a Japanese style coined by graphic artist Terry Johnson (King Terry) called Hetauma. The term that combines the words for good and bad. Kawai herself explains that "Everything has a balance of good and bad to it: for example, Hetauma for me is 'bad, but good'...when something looks cute but has a funny or weird aspect to it, I think it's really special." Part of what I find compelling about her paintings is that when all pretense and traditional measures of technical skill are stripped away this enables the artist to really explore compositions of forms and color in a basic and honest way. There is a fun tension that runs through her work between a serious respect for her own aesthetic vision and her disarming playfulness and irreverence.

Oh no what's going on down here? The Manhattan Project? * Note to self: maybe we'll pop in for a little talkie-talk with Oppenheimer, circa 1939 on the way back home to 2008. Let's listen in. "What don't you like about yourself Mr. Furface?"

"Meep, meep, ma-ma meep, meep, meep!"

"Your nasal-labial folds? Oh we can take care of that with a little Restylane. Oh what's that? Not happy with your inner thighs and the pilates isn't doing it? OK just breathe in deeply and count backwards from 10."

Want in on the fun? I think her work is still up in San Francisco, and Toronto, and she will have a solo show at the LaMontagne Gallery in Boston in February. You can also check here for more upcoming shows.

Welcome SITSas!

Thank you to the folks over at The Secret is in the Sauce for deeming Blicky Kitty a Saucy Blog! I'm honored and Blicky has been floating around the house saucily all morning. It's a great way to get more conversation on your own blog and find new blogs to visit. Shout out and thanks to my friend Kat at Poetikat's Invisible Keepsakes for introducing me to the SITSas!

Email to Blicky from the Google Word Verification Writer

Dear Blicky,

I've been cartym your blog for several muykjls now and I really find it to be quite monotenc. Your insights into the issue of kpoxdrk and eerobnj are truly unique. Thanks to you I really see bjdqirv in a completely different light. I am definitely going to yudrynk to it and I'm going to tell all my dfrewops to do the same!

As you might guess I myself am also a eerobnj writer. My career has taken an unexpected zufarc. People never seem to klopsh the words that I smwm. Some people see my capptcha talent and have tried to create a bijwurtz dictionary, but I'm sad that my work isn't more kploditsch. I always thought I had a way with mgatfflins.

I saw the picture of your sigwmb owner in real life. She is totally jhugiop. Do you think you could get me her tsayuip? Is she dgyrst? I hope not. What a podiebf of promatz!!

Spy vs. Spy

Possible macrocosmic interpretations for Spy vs. Spy:

• The TNT detonator is Bill Ayers, Joe Sixpack, the lobster dinner, Joe the Plumber, accusations of class warfare....uh oh, uh oh BOOOOOOOMMM! Blows up in their faces.
  
• The spies are Pyrrhus and Priam caught in a terrible cycle of violence.
  
• The TNT detonator is the war on terror and we're winning, the surge is working. We're the good team, they're the bad team...uh oh, uh oh BOOOOOOMMMM! Blows up in their faces.
  
• The monochromatic character of the cartoon symbolizes the racial tensions inherent in our culture.

The thing what make the news so hard to handle these days is that everything is presented to us in such black and white terms, as if there is ever a clear good guy and a bad guy. This time around we have a great guy (I've been an admirer of Obama since 2004) and a decent human being who just shouldn't be president now. I love to tease Sarah Palin as much as the next guy. In fact it's become something of a hobby. I disagree with her on pretty much every issue; she thinks people who hail from my state don't love America (even the long term republicans, and those who have lost loved ones in the war), I believe her rallies are coming dangerously close to inciting racial violence in this country and I think the concept of a Palin white house would be a near apocalyptic scenario. "Uh oh, uh oh .....BOOOOM!"

But should people pass judgement on her for deciding to campaign with a small baby at home? Absolutely not! We would never ask the same questions of a man. Should we judge her for the fact that her party bought her a killer wardrobe while she campaigns for Vice President? Absolutely not, because you know we'd be dissing her if she showed up wearing Jacklyn Smith's Kmart collection to her debates and rallies.

Priam killed by Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus), son of Achilles, detail of an Attic black-figure amphora by the Class of Cambridge 49, ca. 520 BC–510 BC, found in Vulci, Louvre, Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sully wing, Campana Gallery (F 222), Photographer: Jastrow (2006)

The black and white stuff is getting the better of us. As Shakespeare's story of Pyrrhus, Priam and Hecuba teaches us, the only way out of the cycle of either violence (or rhetorical dialectics) is compassion. Hamlet should have listened and we should listen too. Shakespeare describes the death of Priam in brutal detail (Act II, scene ii), then describes the grief of Hecuba who has lost both her son and husband:

But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made,
Unless things mortal move them not at all,
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.'

With that one line Shakespeare takes us aloft, up to Mount Olympus where can see the human struggle and the pain it causes. The difficult truth is that families feel the same pain when losing a loved one whether they are Iraqi, American or Afghani. The hard truth for me is that people who believe the polar opposite from me are doing what they think will preserve what is good and right about this country (even as part of me screams "No, no, no you stupid, decadent, greedy, warmongering, homophobic racists" and Blicky retorts "Don't you dare spread my wealth you elitist, atheist, liberal, troop-hating commie weakling). We've come to such an impasse that it's only when we can see the world with real compassion and nuance are we ever going to get at any semblance of truth. 

We at Blicky Kitty (with thanks to Katie) have found the solution. Let's just get together and have a dance party!

Crack Mommy

Mary Cassatt, Child's Bath, 1893, Art Institute of Chicago

Some of you might have noticed that while I am, in fact, a parent, I haven't blogged very often about the kittens. It's not that I'm not tempted, and perhaps I will in the future, but after spending the whole day (choose one, or mix and match): 

• using dried lasagna to create a racetrack for Matchboxes,
• pretending that the artificial flower aisle at Walmarts or Michael's is a magical garden,
• cleaning the vat of A&D ointment that found it's way onto the walls and forms into clumps around the dollhouse furniture, 
• reading to them about art, mythology, opera and ancient history then enduring the blank stares of the public school teachers that don't know what to do with a child with such eccentric interests,
• cleaning the clumps of expensive lavender hand soap that have been gauged out by a phillips head screwdriver,
• doing the voices for various stuffed animals (which sometimes turns into a double conversation when I, Mumma, am talking to them) or conversing with my little kitten's squeaky sounding feet which she's named Susan (oh, and one hand is also Susan, but the other one is Inchy-Binchy Sfider), 
• being the prince for Cinderella and working out a killer dance routine for their closing number,
  
• doing pilates with a pretty little lump of almost 40 pounds on top of me, and then allowing the workout to degenerate into a circus routine that rivals Cirque du Soleil (sort of like Xtreme flying angel),
• turning up the volume on the B52's, Sublime or the GoGos and having a raucous dance party with two girls and hoping like heck the 7 yr. old doesn't notice the f-bomb in What I Got,
• and, of course, using the yoga mat to transform aforementioned screwdriver/diaper ointment technician into a mermaid,

I'm eager for some grown-up subject matter. If that need strikes me before the day is over then that probably means it's a Crack Mommy day. Crack Mommy is a term my sister came up with to describe less than perfect parenting. This was uproariously funny when we were obsessive first time moms, but now I have evolved into a true Crack Mommy. It's not that I actually do crack...so far, but I have learned to embrace my inner Crack Mommy self. Dinner is a perfect opportunity. When I announce we're going to do Crack Mommy Dinner, my girls now know to scream "yayyyyy!" and run into the tv room. They usually get to pick from cold cereal and baby carrots or surprise plates (with buttered bread, raw veggies and fruit). Unfortunately the term has degenerated a bit in our home, so it's evolved into "crack dinner" or sometimes Mr. Kitty will come home and ask "Are we doing crack tonight?" This has not been a problem so far and I think my youngest thinks it's actually Quack Mommy, but I'm bracing myself for the day that DCYF shows up on my doorstep after some well-meaning adult asks my 7 yr. old daughter what her mom gave her for dinner.

Here's my youngest kitten in St. Peter's Square in Rome last Christmas. Her sister loved seeing the opera and learning about Augustus and she just wanted to chase "chickens" and eat gelato. Let's give her the Bloggy name of Mopsy (unless I've already mentioned it in true Crack Mommy form). She's now about to turn three. Inspired by uber-wordsmiths Kat and Cynthia, here's an entry from my journal about her from last year:

You are glittering flickering movement,

You are a verb,

You are a delicious glow,

That feeds and warms those who surround you,

Curly, funny, grinning joy of a person,

My miracle child.

Secret