Anatidaephobia (pronounced anna-tidy-phobia) is a pervasive and irrational fear that you are being watched by a duck. A person with this rare phobia fears that somehow, somewhere a duck is watching their every move.
I know, that’s pretty random, right?
But that’s how this Art Day post works. I had no idea what the first picture would be until I searched for it. This post began not with an idea, but a title; Random Art, the Art of Picking at Random.
Most of my art posts are exactly that. Pictures picked at random simply by going back through my media gallery and picking them. I usually pick up a theme along the way, sensing how the pictures are connected and deciding what that reveals about the artist and how that should be put into words.
I am aware that by relying on my library of already-used images, I am bound to be putting up something that you may have seen before. But I do have a large supply of already-downloaded pictures, and I find that I deeply love seeing some of these over and over again. However, they are all original artworks done by me. (Yes, I know I didn’t make any of the Pez dispensers or anything in the above photo. But I made the arrangement and took the photo. That makes it as much my art as Campbell Soup cans can be Andy Warhol’s work.) And I have seen them far more often than you have, and I haven’t tired of them.
Many of these pictures are actually self portraits. And that’s because an artist can only come up with whatever is actually inside him at the time.
I am not myself in this picture, but it is never-the-less very much about me and who I am inside.
You might be able to spot the connections between this picture and the last one if you are observant of small details.
Boz, the Bard, Diz, and Poe
This picture seems awfully random until you start to see them as Mr. Dickens, Mr. Shakespeare, Mr. Disney, and Mr. Poe.
So, there it is, Random Art for Saturday Art Day. Picked totally at random. And yet, at the end it seems somehow organized. That is a sort of small miracle, and probably proof that God exists… at least in some random way.
One of the benefits of being home in Iowa is that, here, I am not the only comic-book and fantasy-story lover in the family, Here other family members care about Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and the Marvel Universe. Here the sister I didn’t get to see bought the Black Widow movie and lets anybody at Mom’s house access her Disney+ account.
I got to watch Black Widow, the last episode of Loki, and the next episode of Star Wars: Bad Batch in spite of tornadoes in Iowa, loss of internet connection, and Mom’s trips to the Emergency Room.
I have now seen all the Marvel Movies and all the Marvel TV series that have been produced by now, including WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki.
But this is not any sort of movie or TV review. I wouldn’t want to risk spoiling anything.
No, I want to talk about the importance of variety to good story-telling.
You see, I think that is the key to the MCU being so superior to all other superhero movies. And I want to show how that can apply to my own storytelling.
WandaVision was unique because it was a magical mystery story embedded in a series of old TV sitcoms. It used elements of the Dick Van Dyke Show, the Brady Bunch, Bewitched, Malcolm in the Middle, and Modern Family. A grieving witch gifted with chaos magic is living in a world she recreated from her childhood obsession with sitcom DVDs.
Black Widow is an action/adventure spy movie that mimics classic James Bond films. It has artfully been fitted in between Captain America; Civil War and Avengers; Infinity War.
And Falcon and the Winter Soldier is a classic buddy-cop movie where both the detectives, the military police, and the villains have super-soldier-serum-derived super-powers.
And, of course, Loki is like a Doctor Who adventure that travels back and forth through time and space.. altering reality as it goes.
So, the MCU is using a format of interconnecting stories with varied formats, themes, and strategies. This I am trying to do with my own novels. For instance, the central metaphor of Snow Babies is a quilt where each canto is a mini-story quilt block, and all of them are stitched together to make a warm blanket of a tale about a blizzard. The Baby Werewolf is a comedy-horror story told by three first-person narrators. Sing Sad Songs is also a story told by three narrators, but some of the narrative occurs while characters are dreaming. And shared dreamscapes and dream-stories help determine the outcome of the tale. All of my stories share characters, settings, and events.
So, I firmly believe the story-telling experience is greatly enhanced by interconnected variety in the stories themselves.
If you’ve read very much of my goofy little blog, you’ve probably run across the fact that I am something of a conspiracy theorist and strange-twist believer… sometimes referred to as a tinfoil-hat-wearer, or that old uncle you don’t want your kids sitting next to at the Thanksgiving dinner table. And I’ve got another one for you. I discovered while obsessing about nostalgia and old ads in the Saturday Evening Post, that the Coca-Cola company is probably responsible for warping my mind as a child.
My plan in revealing this hideous conspiracy is to take a look at ads and illustrations that I saw as a kid addicted to reading Saturday Evening Post every week at Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich’s farm. I will scour them for hidden meanings and try to reveal to you the insidious plot underlying these mind-altering illustrations. Keep in mind that you should probably take everything I say in this article with a grain of salt. No, really, salt can protect you from subtle mind-control messages.
And, yes, I realize that not all the messages are that subtle. Sometimes they shout at you, “Drink Coke and you will have more sex!” And you have to remember we are trying to avoid that kind of mind control. We have to fight every instance of ad companies trying to take control over us by exploiting our baser animal urges.
So, let me take a momentary interlude, a break if you will. I have this big glass of Diet Coke I just bought at QT, and…
Well, that was good!
Coca-Cola has been at this for a while. This ad from the 1940’s is apparently attempting to win World War II through choice of soft drinks. Look at this feisty brew the soldier is about to quaff. It is actually struggling in the cup to get out and go bite some German soldier’s face off. Any American soldier who can choke this stuff down is tough enough to take on the Axis powers, Napoleon after Hitler dug him up and used Frankenstein’s scientific breakthroughs to re-animate him, and even several countries we weren’t actually at war with. Even Rush Limbaugh and his weird lesbian-farmer-subsidies theory can’t compete with Coke on this level of propaganda wars.
I also think Coca-Cola ads may have something to do with why I became a Cardinals fan when I lived in a place full of Cubs and Twins fans. I admit, I added the dialogue and the commentary, but I used to do the same thing in my head when I was eight and the Cardinals went to the World Series… and the Cubs could not win it all even with Ernie Banks on their team. The Cardinals beat the Yankees in 7 games!
I blame Coca-Cola. Especially their ad department. Cause the generic manager is telling the generic Oubs player to “Relax… take it easy.” But the Cardinals won because Bob Gibson had that laser-intensity stare that bored holes through Mickey Mantle’s bat! (It is Oubs, not Cubs, by the way. Look at the big “O” on his jersey.)
And you can’t tell me that the Coca-Cola ad seen here, the one with the white-haired goblin child casting a spell on you with his crazy eyes and pointing at your dark, delicious master isn’t seriously trying to mess with children’s minds. There used to be a big five-foot-tall metal sign with this very picture on it in the one and only alley in Meservey, Iowa. The one time I went to the barber there to get my hair cut I had to sit in that barber chair and stare at this evil thing staring back at me from the alley across the street. It warped me. For one thing, I never went back to that barber shop again… at least until I was in college and the sign was gone.
So, I seriously believe Coca-Cola was messing with my mind as a child. They did it through subversive ad illustrations in Saturday Evening Post Magazine. And if I’m completely crazy now, I blame them. You don’t see that kind of thing going on today, do you? Well, I mean, we should be very worried. Because it probably means they have gotten better at it.
This is the portal through which every adventure begins. The front porch window at Grandma’s house.
As a boy, it was a doorway. A window for seeing daydreams. Looking at longings. And future plans. I left through the porch for college. And the journey to Texas. What my life would become.
Now it is the portal that welcomes my return. Welcome back to family, to sanctuary, and rest.
Grandpa Butch pulled the pickup over on the side of the road. Bobby and Shane quickly piled out. Horatio jumped down out of the pickup bed where he had ridden to the cemetery.
Grandpa had two roses with him, just like always.
The little Norwall cemetery was a rectangular space of well-tended grass surrounded by stately pine trees just off the south side of State Highway Three. Numerous marble grave markers and family monuments were fairly tightly packed there. Across the gravel road to the East was a newer rectangle of grass surrounded by recently planted white pines that were supposed to be the new addition to the cemetery.
“Grandpa, your folks are buried up there in the old cemetery, right?” Shane asked.
“Yep. The Niland family monument up there contains three generations of our family.”
Bobby nodded at the monument on the hill. He had been taught reverence for the place by both Grandpa Butch and Dad.
That wasn’t, of course, where they were headed.
“I brought you your flower,” Grandpa said to the headstone in the new addition. He kissed one of the roses and put it in the brass vase. The other rose was stretched out to the first, pressed against it as if the blossoms were giving each other a kiss, and then hooked the stem around the left suspender of his overalls.
“Why do you always take one of the roses home with you again?” Bobby asked.
“She knows I brought it here to her, and she sends a little bit of her bright spirit home with me to watch over us for another week.”
“Grandma’s an angel now, isn’t she?” asked Shane. The goof asked that same question every time he came along to the cemetery. And every time it made a tear come to Grandpa Butch’s eye.”
“Of course. She’s right here with her wings spread wide, standing guard over us.”
“Does she ever answer you when you talk to her?” Bobby asked.
“Of course, she does. Don’t you, old woman?”
“So, you inherited the ability to hear voices who aren’t really there,” said Horatio to Bobby. No one but Bobby could hear him, though, so Bobby didn’t say a word in response.
“What you gonna tell her this week?” Shane asked. He often asked that same question too.
“Sassy, ain’t he?” remarked Grandpa Butch. He was talking to Grandma. “You know they can talk to dogs now, your grandsons?”
“What does she say back?” Shane asked.
“She says it’s only Bobby that does. And not to worry about it. It’s natural for Niland boys to have that ability. It’s a sign of smartness and a good imagination.”
“Does that mean that I’m not smart like Bobby is?” Shane’s eyes were open a little wider than usual.
“Oh, no, of course not. You’re both smart. Just in different ways.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I can vouch for the fact that I talked to voices that weren’t really there back in the 40’s when I was a boy. And your dad used to imagine werewolves and monsters he could talk to when he was a boy back in the 70’s. Bobby has the same kind of smartness we had.”
“And how is my smartness different?” Shane asked.
“Your Grandma tells me she was a very perceptive girl when she was your age. She was very aware of how everybody around her was feeling. And she would referee fights and arguments, always the peacemaker… always trying to make other people happy. And she also tells me all the times you’ve done the same exact thing for Bobby and some of his friends. You have a loving intelligence that works more with what you know is real than what you can dream up.”
“Is that a good kind of smart?”
“In some ways it is the best kind of smart. A kind of smartness the rest of us need to rely on.”
“So, Shane is better than me?” Bobby asked, feeling a sad spot in the depths of his stomach.
“No, no… Your Grandma just thinks it’s a different kind of smart. And you are both brave and handsome and good-natured. That’s what it means to be a Niland. You are near to the land, and you can make it blossom and grow.”
“What if I don’t wanna be a farmer?” asked Shane.
“That can be a good thing too. You could be like your Uncle Nat. He felt like that too, so he went to college at ISU and became an engineer. Now he’s a civil engineer in Des Moines, figuring out how to make city things work better and helping people get along with one another better.”
“Can you see her, Grandpa?” Bobby asked, looking at Horatio.
“Your Grandma? Of course, I can. She’s right here by her memorial, in the place that I’ll be one day too.”
“I can see her,” said Horatio.
“Dogs can see ghosts?” Bobby asked before thinking.
“I don’t know about ghosts,” Grandpa Butch said. “But I’ll bet they can see angels. Dogs see with their heart more than with their eyes. That’s why I see her here, and any place I put the second rose in the house.” Grandpa Butch’s eyes were wet. He didn’t say anything more. Neither did the two boys, both of them trying hard to see their grandmother too.
Born in 1931 and lasting in this crazy, mixed-up world until the year 2000, Don Martin was a mixy, crazed-up cartoonist for Mad Magazine who would come to be billed as “Mad Magazine’s Maddest Artist.” His greatest work was done during his Mad years, from 1956 (the year I was born… not a coincidence, I firmly believe) until his retirement in 1988. And I learned a lot from him by reading his trippy toons in Mad from my childhood until my early teacher-hood.
His style is uniquely recognizable and easily identifiable. Nobody cartoons a Foon-man like Don Martin.
The googly eyes are always popped in surprise. The tongue is often out and twirling. Knees and elbows always have amazingly knobbly knobs. Feet have an extra hinge in them that God never thought of when he had Adam on the drawing board.
And then there is the way that Martin uses sound effects. Yes, cartoons in print don’t make literal sounds, but the incredible series of squeedonks and doinks that Martin uses create a cacophony of craziness in the mind’s ear.
And there is a certain musicality in the rhyming of the character names he uses. Fester Bestertester was a common foil for slapstick mayhem, and Fonebone would later stand revealed by his full name, Freenbeen I. Fonebone.
And, of course, one of his most amazingly adventurous ne’er-do-well slapstick characters was the immeasurable Captain Klutz!
Here, there, and everywhere… on the outside he wears his underwear… it’s the incredible, insteadable, and completely not edible… Captain Klutz!
If you cannot tell it from this tribute, I deeply love the comic genius who was Don Martin, Mad Magazine’s Maddest Artist. Like me he was obsessed with nudists and drawing anatomy. Like me he was not above making up words with ridiculous-sounding syllables. And like me he was also a purple-furred gorilla in a human suit… wait! No, he wasn’t, but he did invent Gorilla-Suit Day, where people in gorilla suits might randomly attack you as you go about your daily life, or gorillas in people suits, or… keep your eye on the banana in the following cartoon.
So, even though I told you about Bruce Timm and Wally Wood and other toon artists long before I got around to telling you about Don Martin, that doesn’t mean I love them more. Don Martin is wacky after my own heart, and the reason I spent so much time immersed in Mad Magazine back in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.
The crucial Iowa trip began with a rocky start, so rocky in fact, it almost seemed like an avalanche was rumbling down the mountainside of the future to crush us body and soul. I say it was a crucial trip because of the pandemic that kept me caged in Texas for the past two entire years. My father died in the meantime, And my mother, at 86, is gradually fading with poor heart health as well.
We had vehicle issues. The RV needed an oil change, and so, it was in the shop for an entire day longer than the mechanic had quoted to us when we took it in. True to form power outages and internet outages prevented us from getting the crucial maintenance in a more timely fashion.
And as we were nearing our destination, we learned that my mother was in the emergency room with raging high blood pressure. Another unexpectedly gloomy delay. I cried when she finally got released from the hospital and I was able to hug her once more.
And of course, the very next morning, Mom’s blood pressure was way too high once again. We called the ambulance and spent a tough morning with her looking gray in the face, and the rest of us were a little green with worry.
But Mom’s meds were re-adjusted and began doing what they were supposed to do. She was released rather than admitted to the hospital again. And this morning the sun came out. She’s a hundred percent better and the world is right again.
So, I took some pictures of the sunshine on the farm place, and I feel better about the world now too.
Catch a Falling Star 
Coca-Cola Mind Control
If you’ve read very much of my goofy little blog, you’ve probably run across the fact that I am something of a conspiracy theorist and strange-twist believer… sometimes referred to as a tinfoil-hat-wearer, or that old uncle you don’t want your kids sitting next to at the Thanksgiving dinner table. And I’ve got another one for you. I discovered while obsessing about nostalgia and old ads in the Saturday Evening Post, that the Coca-Cola company is probably responsible for warping my mind as a child.
My plan in revealing this hideous conspiracy is to take a look at ads and illustrations that I saw as a kid addicted to reading Saturday Evening Post every week at Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich’s farm. I will scour them for hidden meanings and try to reveal to you the insidious plot underlying these mind-altering illustrations. Keep in mind that you should probably take everything I say in this article with a grain of salt. No, really, salt can protect you from subtle mind-control messages.
And, yes, I realize that not all the messages are that subtle. Sometimes they shout at you, “Drink Coke and you will have more sex!” And you have to remember we are trying to avoid that kind of mind control. We have to fight every instance of ad companies trying to take control over us by exploiting our baser animal urges.
So, let me take a momentary interlude, a break if you will. I have this big glass of Diet Coke I just bought at QT, and…
Well, that was good!
Coca-Cola has been at this for a while. This ad from the 1940’s is apparently attempting to win World War II through choice of soft drinks. Look at this feisty brew the soldier is about to quaff. It is actually struggling in the cup to get out and go bite some German soldier’s face off. Any American soldier who can choke this stuff down is tough enough to take on the Axis powers, Napoleon after Hitler dug him up and used Frankenstein’s scientific breakthroughs to re-animate him, and even several countries we weren’t actually at war with. Even Rush Limbaugh and his weird lesbian-farmer-subsidies theory can’t compete with Coke on this level of propaganda wars.
I also think Coca-Cola ads may have something to do with why I became a Cardinals fan when I lived in a place full of Cubs and Twins fans. I admit, I added the dialogue and the commentary, but I used to do the same thing in my head when I was eight and the Cardinals went to the World Series… and the Cubs could not win it all even with Ernie Banks on their team. The Cardinals beat the Yankees in 7 games!
I blame Coca-Cola. Especially their ad department. Cause the generic manager is telling the generic Oubs player to “Relax… take it easy.” But the Cardinals won because Bob Gibson had that laser-intensity stare that bored holes through Mickey Mantle’s bat! (It is Oubs, not Cubs, by the way. Look at the big “O” on his jersey.)
And you can’t tell me that the Coca-Cola ad seen here, the one with the white-haired goblin child casting a spell on you with his crazy eyes and pointing at your dark, delicious master isn’t seriously trying to mess with children’s minds. There used to be a big five-foot-tall metal sign with this very picture on it in the one and only alley in Meservey, Iowa. The one time I went to the barber there to get my hair cut I had to sit in that barber chair and stare at this evil thing staring back at me from the alley across the street. It warped me. For one thing, I never went back to that barber shop again… at least until I was in college and the sign was gone.
So, I seriously believe Coca-Cola was messing with my mind as a child. They did it through subversive ad illustrations in Saturday Evening Post Magazine. And if I’m completely crazy now, I blame them. You don’t see that kind of thing going on today, do you? Well, I mean, we should be very worried. Because it probably means they have gotten better at it.
3 Comments
Filed under autobiography, baseball, baseball fan, commentary, conspiracy theory, foolishness, humor
Tagged as coca cola, conspiracy theory, humor, mind control, propaganda