Not Alison, but

Brief Reports From the Life of Someone Not Named Alison

[notalisonyet]

[notalisonyet]

When I was in school—through high school and college—and people saw me drawing all the time, occasionally someone would ask, “When did you start drawing?”

I truly could never understand this question at all. It shocked me every time. I mean, what are you talking about? I always drew, and so did every other child I ever saw or heard of. I just didn’t stop, that’s all.

actual sample of early drawing: Batmobile (probably); marker on construction paper; first grade

[notalisonyet]

To truly emphasize how different the world was when I was a small child, I shouldn’t say I remember a time before the internet, before CDs, before the VCR; I should say that on Sesame Street, Elmo was little more than an occasional background character and most people my age who watched the show had no idea what his name was.

[notalisonyet]

In Greek myth the sirens are not mermaids. As shown in early Greek art they are large birds with human heads; they live on rocks sticking out of the sea, not in the sea itself.

[notalisonyet]

How Do I Address This Kindly?

Lots of people know that the words who, what, when, where, why, and how are “question words” that introduce (obviously) questions.

But that’s not the only way they can be used. Not everything that starts with one of these words needs a question mark at the end.

Questions:

How do I get to Sesame Street?

Where do red ferns grow?

Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

When did the boy stop playing with the piglet?

Not Questions:

How to Get to Sesame Street

Where the Red Fern Grows

Why Fools Fall in Love

When it became a bore.

I used caps for most of the second group because they’re so often going to be titles, headings, and subheadings.

So if you write a web article about how to eat tacos, please don’t title it “How to Eat Tacos?” Instead just call it “How to Eat Tacos” and I at least will be grateful.

[notalisonyet]

Today I had some large flower pots delivered, and I got mad when I saw the store had sent me one with bird droppings on it . . . and then I remembered I’m planting stuff in these. That’s fertilizer.

(Not to mention they’ll be outside where more birds will do the same anyway.)

[notalisonyet]

Has anyone done a scientific study on whether birds recognize the McDonalds sign and understand it as a place to look for dropped food?

[notalisonyet]

[notalisonyet]

Just like Airplane Mode, phone makers need to come out with Time Travel Mode, so while you’re in the past the phone won’t back up anything to the cloud, won’t try to sync your photo library, and won’t get mixed up when accessing local time and date.

[notalisonyet]

In a relationship there comes a moment when you’re sure you’re right but think “If I say that it will start a fight” and so you let it go.

Welcome to Maturity.

[notalisonyet]

Most werewolves in movies, books, etc. are far more bloodthirsty, savage, and brutal than actual wolves are. Which is to say, all that uncontrolled violence comes from the human side of the combination.

[notalisonyet]

I was at a park and saw this sign near the pond.

I didn’t know this. Our cultural ideas of regular behavior aren’t always so appropriate.

Helpfully, the sign doesn’t just tell you what not to do, it gives you easy alternatives.

[notalisonyet]

I’m shocked to see my last post was more than a year ago (and was only a reblog at that). For the record, I look at Tumblr daily, I just don’t get to post much anymore.

[smithsonianlibrariesarchives]

Some quadrupeds from Prosper Alpini's Prosperi Alpini Marosticensis, philosophi, medici, in celeberrimo Lyceo Patavino pharmaciae professoris ordinarii, hortique medici praefecti, Historiæ Ægypti naturalis (1735).

Full text here.

[notalisonyet]

On my WordPress site I’ve posted the first installment of a new graphic novella called After the Fire. I’ll be serializing it there as time goes on. The text is complete and all the principal drawings have been finished, so it’s a matter of polishing artwork and assembling the final pages.

.

This first page and five more are online at https://notalisonblog.com/after-the-fire-chapters-1-2/. I hope to do weekly updates for as long as I can.

[smithsonianlibrariesarchives]

An "alleged Ostrich" from Berthold Laufer's Chinese clay figures (1914).

Full text here.

[notalisonyet]

This is by:

(a) Someone who’d never seen an ostrich and relied on a verbal description

or

(b) someone who had seen an ostrich but believed using reference was “cheating.”

[notalisonyet]

Charade (1963)

You’ll hear it called “the greatest Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made,” which sounds about right except it isn’t really fair to the actual director, Stanley Donen.

I love the theme music by Henry Mancini and find myself clicking it out with my tongue probably once a week or more (TOK-tok-tok t’tok-tok-t’tok-tok).

Audrey Hepburn is a delight as always. Cary Grant is wonderful as usual (even if he needs to be twenty/thirty years younger for this role).

Mystery, suspense, humor, one-liners, danger, lies, double-crosses, a missing fortune, Hepburn playing a character stretched and strained until she doesn’t know which end is up, and naturally that infectious theme: it gets almost everything right.

In some bonus feature somewhere I heard Audrey Hepburn complain that one of the funniest lines in the movie—one of hers—is stepped on by the instrumentation at the very, very, very end, and I have to agree with her. If only they’d waited two more seconds and let her words come through cleanly!