TELL ME ABOUT GOD

I found this book in a great used bookstore on Spadina: Tell Me About God, written by Mary Alice Jones and illustrated by Pelagie Doane, circa 1959. (Originally published in 1943.)


From the inside flap: "Inside this unique and beautiful book are answered the most profoundly important questions children can ask. "Who is God?" "Why Can't I see God?" "How does God care for me?" "Does God Love everybody?" With these first wondering questions the little child is approaching the great fundamental truths of religion. His whole spiritual development may depend upon how wisely he is answered. Mary Alice Jones... has prepared this book especially to help parents with their important task of bringing their children to know God. Entirely non-denominational, TELL ME ABOUT GOD reflects the best thinking of present-day leaders in the field of religious education." Once I get set up with a scanner I'll post some more of the illustrations, but for now here's my favorite. It goes with the chapter titled "God Sent His Son." I'll reprint the whole chapter here, and dedicate it to Shira Leuchter, who will hopefully learn something...

GOD SENT HIS SON

BOBBY showed his mother a picture of Jesus. His teacher at church had given it to him. "Tell me about Jesus," he asked. "God loves us so much, Bobby, that he sent his son, Jesus, to tell us about it." "How did Jesus tell us?" "He did more than just tell us. He showed us. He helped those who were sick. He played with the little children and told them stories.He was kind to those who were sad. He said, 'See, I love you. That is why I want to help you. God loves you, too. And God wants to help you, too.'" "Did the people listen to him?" "Many of them did. And they understood God's love. Jesus showed them what it meant. They said, 'God is like Jesus. He loves us.' " "Were the people glad?" "Those who listened to Jesus were very glad, Bobby. They felt happy. They said, 'We feel all made over. We are not sad or afraid any more. We know God loves us, whatever happens to us.' " "What else did Jesus tell the people?" "He told them God's plan for them. He told them how God wanted them to live together. He said 'Love one another. Help one another. Share with one another.' " "What did the people do?" "Some of them said, 'Jesus is telling us God's plan for us. It is a good plan. It will make people happy. We will live the way he says.' " "What did the other people do?" "The other people did not listen to Jesus. They did not want to know God's plan for them. They wanted to have their own way. And they made many people unhappy." "If I had been there I would have listened," Bobby said. "Would you, Bobby? I am glad. What Jesus said is still God's plan for us. We can listen to him now."

THE FEET ARE THE BEST PART

Here are some pictures of an installation called TELEPHONIC SHEEP at The Frankfurt Museum of Communications, c. 2004. The artist is Jean-Luc Cornec.

Supposedly these guys were all over the web a couple of years ago, but I missed them then. Better late than never.



The sheep are constructed entirely out of recycled telephone parts, their wool being, of course, the telephone cords.



I'm actually amazed at how life-like they appear.



The feet are my favorite part.



Thanks to Jenny Kuri for bringing these little guys to my attention.

BURTON CUMMINGS, PEDOPHILE*

"Hi! I'm Burton Cummings! Just an average, ordinary dude! Do you like my suit?"

"I've never actually tried before, but I feel confident I could hypnotize you using just my hands and my voice... No, you're right, I have not been sleeping well lately. I'm feeling stressed."

"I've got this very" (Sweat, sweat.) "powerful urge building within me... I can't" (Sweat, sweat.) "help it. I've got to" (Sweat.) "get to a" (Sweat.) "playground right now. Heh, heh... Sloppy! Sloppy!" (Sweat, sweat.)

(No caption needed.)

"Burton Cummings. Prisoner 7694381. Ready for rehabilitation... Can I get a work detail in the nursery? Is that possible? No? This is going to be a long thirty years."

*Burton Cummings is in no way an actual pedophile, so far as I know. He just seems like one based on the evidence presented above.

BANKSY HEARTS BLEK LA RAT

Banksy is a London, England-based artist. He makes public art. His work is almost always political, or at the very least it comments on societal norms, and it more often than not achieves genuine wit.

Banksy is famous. New works of his are regularly covered by London newspapers. There is wide speculation as to his identity. If a Banksy appears on the side of a building it usually stays there. In some cases the owners of the buildings have repainted around the art... A far cry from how standard graffiti is treated, wouldn't you say?

Here is a selection of my favorite of Banksy's works...

Banksy's style is derivative of a guy named Blek la Rat, a French artist -and the inventor of stencil graffiti- who visited New York in the early 1980's and loved the traditional graf he saw there. He decided to use stencils so as to not just copy what he'd seen while in the States. Blek la Rat's stuff was also often political or satirical, and sometimes he even appeared in his work himself.

You can see Blek la Rat's work HERE.

THE ALIENS, THEY THINK THE FARMING IS PURTY

It looks like some kind of fancy -and awesome- geometric painting, but it's not... In fact, it's a photo of Kansas farmland taken from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). It's a real photo.

The photo was taken on June 24th of 2001, but was classified until 2005. The green circles -which measure as much as 1.6 km in diameter- are corn, leafy in June, and the paler green is sorghum; the bright gold color is wheat. The circular shape of the field is owed to a method of irrigation that draws water from a well at the centre of each field, using long pipes mounted on wheels that rotate on a pivot, dropping water onto the crops instead of spraying it over them with sprinklers, and necessitating round fields.

Agriculture is hot.

Click HERE to see more pics from ASTER.

LET THERE BE (STYLISHLY APPOINTED) LIGHT!

Shopping on Queen a couple of weekends ago Shell and I found this antique store (I think Art Deco...) with a downright bizarre collection of lamps. Here are some of my favorites...

Clearly this lady is a very sexy ballerina.























If she was on my bedside table I'd never get any sleep.

Q. Are We Not Men?

A. We are Equus.























A horsey! Wearing a Devo "Whip It" hat!

And my favorite... The Mushroom Fairy.























It's the knife that makes it art. Also the hat. And the boots. And check out those calves!

Is it just me, or does this fairy look vaguely like Renee Zellweger?

SNEAKY SUBMARINE

So, though there's little evidence to suggest I can maintain one blog consistently for any length of time, I've started a second...

It's called SNEAKY SUBMARINE, and is dedicated solely and wholly to music.

I'm a music geek of sorts, and even though the header says and will continue to say that BOATS MADE OF OCEAN is about, at least in part, music I wanted someplace that was all about music.

Anyway, I hope you take a second to check it out. I've written a not terribly great little blurb about a terribly great HARMONY TROWBRIDGE show I went to recently, and a review of the new ELVIS COSTELLO album, MOMOFUKU... Which is brilliant, by the way.