The Candy Grabber: Halloween in Hyde Park, 2023
We got some screams, which was fantastic. And we even got several folks who outright refused to put their hands in, and said “It’s not worth it.”
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A Shameful Reminder
Posted here, mostly as a reminder of a shameful incident at Home Depot. We were looking for “rope lights,” something we could put outside and light up our sidewalk for Halloween.
Liz gravitated towards an LED section near the light bulbs, but I balked. Most of the things on the shelves were for cabinet/interior lighting, so I insisted we look elsewhere.
Halloween 2023: Using AI for Signage
After getting a pretty gruesome example (left), I asked DALL-E to make something a bit more family friendly. And it produced the image on the right. I’m honestly not sure which image is more terrifying.
Darlingside @ Old Town School of Folk Music
Our show was inside the Gary @ Laura Maurer Concert Hall, where supposedly every seat is within 45 feet of the stage. It was definitely an intimate space, and a lovely place for a show.
Halloween 2023: Assembly
A tremendous caveat: I used a lot of scrap wood, and some pretty twisted 2x4s. If you’ll grant me a kindness, let’s blame the flaws in this construction on those warped boards… and not on my lackluster skills as a craftsman.
Watchhouse: Rounder
“They’re gonna hang me boys from a tall, tall tree
Those demons, they’ll be the death of me
Some folks are guided by some light of the Lord
But me I was blinded and I’ll never afford my salvation”
Halloween 2023: Painting
Sanded down the pieces that we had covered with wood filler.
Gluesizing
I am not a good chronicler of all the stain-related experiments that Liz has undertaken. I’ve tried to keep up with all her variations, but there are times it gets pretty confusing to me.
Finding Bobo
Something happened to me today. I was browsing Instagram, and I saw a photo from my friend Betsy. And I looked a little closer at this photo, and I was taken aback.
If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to recreate for you the experience I had. Stay with me here.
Halloween 2023: Work Continues
So. I spent a lot of the day in the basement, working with these supplies. And it seems like all I did was make a few prototypes of Halloween anuses. Because let’s be honest, this is what they look like.
Halloween 2023: Work Begins
Started getting to work on our Halloween project for 2023. Not really going to share a lot of details here, so mostly just photos for now.
Biko’s Manna: How Deep Is Your Love
I long for the Internet I knew back in the early 2000’s, and this video absolutely reminds me of that era. Talent, sincerity, and whismy, all combined into a shared slice of media that makes the world feel a little less distant.
J’accuse!
I walked into the living room after work, and thought “Well that’s weird. Why is there a big bag of candy on the table?”
Poem with Human Intelligence
“In this century, chatbots write poems
where starlings wander from their murmuration
into the denim-thick clouds of a storm.”
Testing the Powdered Dyes
Liz has so many different tests, with so many different products… I’m having a hard time keeping it all straight. When she gives me a recap of what she’s done, I tend to have to ask a lot of basic questions, to try to catch up.
It’s a lot of testing, it’s a lot of variations. It’s all kinds of impressive.